Lost Victories

Last updated

Verlorene Siege
Lost Victories
Lost Victories by Erich von Manstein.jpeg
An early English-language edition of Lost Victories
Author Erich von Manstein
TranslatorAnthony G.Powell
LanguageEnglish, German
Genre Memoir
Publication date
1955
Published in English
1958
Media typePrint

Verlorene Siege (English: Lost Victories; full title of English edition: Lost Victories: The War Memoirs of Hitler's Most Brilliant General) is the personal narrative of Erich von Manstein, a German field marshal during World War II. The book was first published in West Germany in 1955, then in Spain in 1956. Its English translation was published in 1958 for distribution in the UK and the US.

Contents

Many historians have called Verlorene Siege unreliable and apologetic. German historian Volker Berghahn wrote about the book, "Its title gave the story away: it had been Hitler's dogmatism and constant interference with the strategic plans and operational decisions of the professionals that had cost Germany its victory against Stalin". [1]

Analysis of themes

On the Red Army

Manstein portrayed the average Soviet soldier as courageous but poorly led. [2] Depicting the Soviet officer corps as hopelessly incompetent, he portrayed the war on the Eastern Front as a German army vastly superior in fighting ability being steadily ground down by an opponent superior only in numbers. [2] According to The Myth of the Eastern Front by Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davies, that aspect of Verlorene Siege was self-serving, as it allowed Manstein to ignore several occasions, such as the fall of Kiev in November 1943, in which he was deceived and defeated by the Stavka. [2]

On German generals

Manstein disparaged other German generals, portraying them as incompetent. Manstein took the credit for German victories and blamed Hitler and his fellow generals for every defeat. [3] His arch-enemy was General Franz Halder; according to Manstein, although Halder understood that Hitler's leadership was defective, he lacked the courage to do anything about it. [3] Smelser and Davies also called Manstein's criticism of Hitler self-serving. The general falsely claimed that he wanted the 6th Army to be pulled out of Stalingrad after it was encircled, only to be overruled by Hitler, and attacked Hitler for launching Operation Citadel, a plan developed by Manstein himself for execution months earlier, before the buildup of Soviet defenses. [2]

Absence of politics and war crimes

Manstein avoided political issues, treating the war as an operational matter. [3] He expressed no regret for serving a genocidal regime, and nowhere in Verlorene Siege did Manstein condemn National Socialism on moral grounds; Hitler was criticized only for faulty strategic decisions. [4] Manstein's lament for Germany's "lost victories" in the Second World War implied that the world would have benefited from a Nazi victory. [4] Manstein falsely claimed that he did not enforce the Commissar Order and omitted any mention of his role in the Holocaust, such as sending 2,000 of his soldiers to help the SS massacre 11,000 Jews in Simferopol in November 1941. [5]

Translation

Missing English passages

There are several passages conspicuously missing in the English version [6] of this book but present in the original German [7] . Here are a few:

Der Mittelteil der Krim war eine Ebene, fast baumlose, aber fruchtbare Landschaft, über die allerdings im Winter die eisigen Winde aus den weiten Steppengebieten der Ostukraine hinwegbrausten. Hier gab es große, gut bewirtschaftete Kolchosen, deren Inventar die Sowjets natürlich zerstört oder fortgeschleppt hatten. Wir gingen alsbald daran, soweit es die Aufrechterhaltung der Produktion irgend zulief, den enteigneten Bauern ihr Land als Eigentum wiederzugeben. So standen sie zumeist auf unserer Seite, waren damit aber auch dem Terror der im Jailagebirge kämpfenden Partisanen ausgesetzt.

The central part of the Crimea was a flat, almost treeless but fertile landscape, over which, however, in winter the icy winds from the vast steppe regions of the eastern Ukraine blew. Here there were large, well-managed collective farms, whose inventory the Soviets had of course destroyed or carried away. We immediately set about restoring the land to the dispossessed peasants as property, as far as it was possible to maintain production. So they were mostly on our side, but were also exposed to the terror of the partisans fighting in the Jaila Mountains.

pp 232

Die Tataren stellten sich sogleich auf unsere Seite. Sie sahen in uns die Befreier vom bolschewistischen Joch, zumal wir ihre religiösen Gebrauche streng achteten. Eine Abordnung von ihnen erschien bei mir, um mir Obst und handgewebte schöne Stoffe für ihren Befreier "Adolf Effendi" zu übergeben.

The Tartars immediately took our side. They saw in us the liberators from the Bolshevik yoke, especially since we strictly respected their religious customs. A delegation of them came to me to give me fruit and beautiful hand-woven fabrics for their liberator, "Adolf Effendi."

pp233


Der Erfolg dieser Hilfe, wie auch die Achtung, die wir ihrer religiösen Einstellung entgegenbrachten, hat dazu geführt, daß die in der Masse tatarische Bevölkerung der Krim uns durchaus freundlich gegenüberstand. Wir konnten sogar aus den Tataren bewaffnete Selbstschutzkompanien aufstellen, deren Aufgabe es war, ihre Dörfer gegen die Überfalle der im Jaila~-Gebirge eingenisteten Partisanen zu schützen.

The success of this aid, as well as the respect we showed for their religious beliefs, led to the fact that the Crimean population, who were largely Tatar, was quite friendly towards us. We were even able to set up armed self-defence companies from the Tatars, whose task it was to protect their villages against attacks by the partisans who had settled in the Jaila Mountains.

pp247


Daß es auf der Krim von Anbeginn eine starke Partisanen-Bewegung gab, die uns viel zu schaffen machte, lag daran, daß die Bevölkerung der Krim neben den Tataren und anderen Volkssplittern auch eine große Zahl von Russen enthielt. Sie waren z. T. erst unter dem bolschewistischen Regime auf die Krim gebracht worden. Aus diesen und den zahlreichen bei den ersten Kämpfen im Gebirge Versprengten rekrutierten sich die Partisanen vorwiegend.

The fact that there was a strong partisan movement in the Crimea from the very beginning, which caused us a lot of trouble, was due to the fact that the population of the Crimea included not only the Tatars and other ethnic splinters but also a large number of Russians. Some of them had only been brought to the Crimea under the Bolshevik regime. The partisans were mainly recruited from these and the numerous people who had been scattered during the first fighting in the mountains.

pp247

Reception

Moral perspective

After Verlorene Siege was published, the West German newspaper Die Zeit asked about Manstein's account: "What would it have signified for the world and for Germany, what would it have signified for a Christian and gentleman like Manstein if these victories had not been lost?" [8] German historian Jürgen Förster wrote in 1998 that for too long, most Germans accepted at face value self-serving claims by generals such as Manstein and Siegfried Westphal in their memoirs that the Wehrmacht was a professional, apolitical force who were victims (not followers) of Adolf Hitler; these evaded the issue of Wehrmacht war crimes. [9]

In 2004, historian Volker Berghahn called Manstein's memoirs "totally unreliable"; if more had been known about his war crimes during the 1940s, he might have been hanged. [1] According to Berghahn, "By the time Christian Streit published his book Keine Kameraden about the mass murder of Red Army prisoners of war at the hands of the Wehrmacht, professional historians firmly accepted what Manstein and his comrades had denied and covered up, i.e., that the Wehrmacht had been deeply involved in the criminal and genocidal policies of the Nazi regime". [1] Historians Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davies noted that nowhere in his memoirs or other post-war writings did Manstein explicitly condemn National Socialism. [4] Max Egremont called the memoir "arrogant" and "self-serving" in Literary Review . Andrew Roberts wrote in The Storm of War that it has "rightly been condemned". [10]

Operational perspective

S.L.A. Marshall said that the book is "An invaluable military book". [11] In the preface to Lost Victories, military historian and officer Martin Blumenson wrote that Verlorene Siege was "the best book of memoirs on the German side and it is indispensable for understanding the conditions and circumstances of Hitler’s war." [12] Military historian Robert M. Citino also found its operational details useful, but criticized Manstein for "defending his generalship and reputation, hiding his participation in war crimes, and blaming others for everything that went wrong"; [13] and that "Lost Victories should come with a warning label: Use with Caution." [14]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erich von Manstein</span> German field marshal (1887–1973)

Fritz Erich Georg Eduard von Manstein was a German Generalfeldmarschall in the Heer (Army) of Nazi Germany during World War II. He was subsequently convicted of war crimes and sentenced to 18 years imprisonment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heinz Guderian</span> German general (1888–1954)

Heinz Wilhelm Guderian was a German general during World War II who, after the war, became a successful memoirist. An early pioneer and advocate of the "blitzkrieg" approach, he played a central role in the development of the panzer division concept. In 1936, he became the Inspector of Motorized Troops.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Commissar Order</span> Nazi order instructing frontline troops to murder Soviet political commissars

The Commissar Order was an order issued by the German High Command (OKW) on 6 June 1941 before Operation Barbarossa. Its official name was Guidelines for the Treatment of Political Commissars. It instructed the Wehrmacht that any Soviet political commissar identified among captured troops be summarily executed as a purported enforcer of the so-called Judeo-Bolshevism ideology in military forces. It is one of a series of criminal orders issued by the Nazi leadership.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franz Halder</span> General and chief of staff in Nazi Germany

Franz Halder was a German general and the chief of staff of the Army High Command (OKH) in Nazi Germany from 1938 until September 1942. During World War II, he directed the planning and implementation of Operation Barbarossa, the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. Halder became instrumental in the radicalisation of warfare on the Eastern Front. He had his staff draft both the Commissar Order and the Barbarossa Decree that allowed German soldiers to execute Soviet citizens for any reason without fear of later prosecution, leading to numerous war crimes and atrocities during the campaign. After the war, he had a decisive role in the development of the myth of the clean Wehrmacht.

Army Group A was the name of three distinct army groups of the Heer, the ground forces of the Wehrmacht, during World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Friedrich von Mellenthin</span> German general during World War II

Friedrich von Mellenthin was a German general during World War II. A participant in most of the major campaigns of the war, he became known afterwards for his memoirs Panzer Battles, first published in 1956 and reprinted several times since then.

Paul Carell was the post-war pen name of Paul Karl Schmidt who was a writer and German propagandist. During the Nazi era, Schmidt served as the chief press spokesman for Joachim von Ribbentrop's Foreign Ministry. In this capacity during World War II, he maintained close ties with the Wehrmacht, while he served in the Allgemeine-SS. One of his specialities was the "Jewish question". After the war, Carell became a successful author mostly of revisionist books that romanticized and whitewashed the Wehrmacht.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manstein plan</span> War plan of the German Army during the Battle of France in 1940

The Manstein plan or Case Yellow, was the war plan of the German armed forces for the Battle of France in 1940. The original invasion plan was an awkward compromise devised by General Franz Halder, the chief of staff of Oberkommando des Heeres that satisfied no one. Documents with details of the plan fell into Belgian hands during the Mechelen incident on 10 January 1940 and the plan was revised several times, each giving more emphasis to an attack by Army Group A through the Ardennes, which progressively reduced the offensive by Army Group B through the Low Countries to a diversion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">11th Army (Wehrmacht)</span> Unit of the German Army in the Eastern Front of World War II

The 11th Army was a World War II field army.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">17th Army (Wehrmacht)</span> Field army of Nazi Germany during WWII

The German Seventeenth Army was a field army of Nazi Germany during World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crimea Shield</span> WW2 German military decoration

The Crimea Shield was a World War II German military decoration. It was awarded to military personnel under the command of Field Marshal von Manstein, including supporting naval and air force units, who fought against Soviet Red Army forces between 21 September 1941 and 4 July 1942 and who captured the Crimea region. It was instituted on 25 July 1942. It was the most widely distributed of the various German campaign shields, with approximately 250,000 awarded.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franz Mattenklott</span> Military officer of World War II

Franz Friedrich Hugo Mattenklott was a German general in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trial of Erich von Manstein</span> Trial of a Nazi military commander in Germany

Erich von Manstein was a prominent commander of Nazi Germany's World War II army (Heer). In 1949, he was tried for war crimes in Hamburg, was convicted of nine of seventeen charges and sentenced to eighteen years in prison. He served only four years before being released.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donbas strategic offensive (August 1943)</span> 1943 Red Army strategic offensive of World War II

The Donbas strategic offensive was the second of two strategic operations of the Soviet Red Army on the Eastern Front of World War II, with the goal of liberating the Donetsk Basin, or Donbas, from the forces of Nazi Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franz Kurowski</span> German author (1923–2011)

Franz Kurowski was a German author of fiction and non-fiction who specialised in World War II topics. He is best known for producing apologist, revisionist and semi-fictional works on the history of the war, including the popular English-language series Panzer Aces and Infantry Aces.

Myth of the clean <i>Wehrmacht</i> Aspect of World War II historiography

The myth of the clean Wehrmacht is the negationist notion that the regular German armed forces were not involved in the Holocaust or other war crimes during World War II. The myth, heavily promoted by German authors and military personnel after World War II, completely denies the culpability of the German military command in the planning and perpetration of war crimes. Even where the perpetration of war crimes and the waging of an extermination campaign, particularly in the Soviet Union – the populace of which was viewed by the Nazis as "sub-humans" ruled by "Jewish Bolshevik" conspirators – has been acknowledged, they are ascribed to the "Party soldiers corps", the Schutzstaffel (SS), but not the regular German military.

<i>The Myth of the Eastern Front</i> 2008 book by Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davies

The Myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi–Soviet War in American Popular Culture (2008) by Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davies, is a historical analysis of the post-war myth of the "Clean Wehrmacht", the negative impact of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS mythologies in popular culture, and the effects of historical negationism upon cultural perceptions of the Eastern Front of the Second World War.

The Waffen-SS, the combat branch of the paramilitary SS organisation of Nazi Germany, is often portrayed uncritically or admiringly in popular culture.

A war of annihilation or war of extermination is a type of war in which the goal is the complete annihilation of a state, a people or an ethnic minority through genocide or through the destruction of their livelihood. The goal can be outward-directed or inward, against elements of one's own population. The goal is not like other types of warfare, the recognition of limited political goals, such as recognition of a legal status, control of disputed territory, or the total military defeat of an enemy state.

The LIV Army Corps was a Wehrmacht army corps during World War II. It was formed in June 1941. After February 1944, it was upgraded to a command equivalent in rank but not in name to an army, something that the Wehrmacht dubbed an army detachment. It operated under the following names:

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Preface" by Volker Berghahn from War of Extermination edited by Klaus Naumann & Hannes Heer, New York: Berghahn Books, 2004 page xiv.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 95.
  3. 1 2 3 Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 96.
  4. 1 2 3 Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 97.
  5. ↑ Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 97-98.
  6. ↑ Erich Von Manstein (1958). Lost Victories. Internet Archive.
  7. ↑ Erich von Manstein (2000). Verlorene Siege (in German). Internet Archive. Bernard & Graefe Verlag.
  8. ↑ Marianne Regensburger, Mansteins-verlorene-Siege, Zeit Online 07.07.1955 Nr. 27
  9. ↑ Förster 1998, p. 266.
  10. ↑ Roberts, Andrew (2009). The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War. London: HarperCollins. p. 584. ISBN   978-0-06-122859-9.
  11. ↑ Association of the United States Army. Army, Volume 23. 1982. OCLC 5838019. Retrieved on 9 Oct. 2023
  12. ↑ Lost Victories: The War Memoirs of Hitler's Most Brilliant General (Zenith Press, 2004), p. 11
  13. ↑ Robert M. Citino: "Lost Victories is still a crucial account of the war, and so are the other memoirs. On operational matters–deployment and maneuver of divisions, corps, and armies–they are as good a source as you can find." Weider History Group, Forgotten Army, Lost Victories, retrieved on Mar 17 2014
  14. ↑ Weider History Group, Forgotten Army, Lost Victories, retrieved on Mar 17 2014

Sources

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.