#field marshal von bock

[bookloversofbath]

Army Group Center: The Wehrmacht in Russia 1941-1945 :: Werner Haupt

[peipurr]

sometimes I love to think of how the Generalfeldmarschalls are just .... human. beneath their military personality and after all the atrocities they may have done. and no, this isn't me justifying the n4zi's horrendous crimes, but sometimes I just think that people who wrote books abt them need to see that side of them too, like okay their military was great but c'mon, let's not forget about their interesting personality!

and some of the facts I often think are:

that my precious baby Model was a member of literary society during his youth excelled in Greek, Latin, and History (and some also say in Poetry — I wonder if he ever wrote a poem).

Von Leeb loved to collect stamps!!! and very fond of his family's chronicles.

There is a story in the Keitel Family that Wilhelm almost went to tears when he gave up his hope to become a farmer in order to stay in the military to support his family.

Von Reichenau was fond of German literature and classical music. He brought to the battlefield in the Polish campaign a small volume of a selection of German poetry.

Von Rundstedt loved detective thriller books but was shy to show it. He regularly read the novel in an open drawer which could be quickly closed whenever anyone came in to see him.

Rommel and Schörner's rivalry. David Irving wrote: "One of Schoerner’s frequent pranks was to plant silver cutlery from the mess in the pockets of guests at formal banquets and watch their embarrassment when the spoons and forks fell out. Rommel, when it happened to him, was not amused. Their rivalry persisted to the end. It was generally friendly, and once, after Schoerner had made a name for ruthlessness bordering on brutality in the Crimea ... Rommel solicitously took him aside and candidly urged him to try a different method."

Von Bock seemed to be very fond of boys —not in the negative way. In Sudetenland, he once "took his twelve-year-old son, dressed in a sailor suit, along in his car "to impress on his son the beauty and exhilaration that lie in soldiering."". In 1940, he sent a postcard to the same son, Dinnies von der Osten. Also, one of Fedi's last wishes to von Manstein was that he should take care of the 16 year old Dinnies after his death, which Erli did until his capitulation. Not that it matters, but Dinnies was not his biological son. It was his second wife's son from her previous marriage. I think it shows how much Fedi cared for the boy. Then, his diary entry on 8/9/39: " ... I was able to present the first Iron Cross of this war to a Private First Class of the 94th Regiment who acted bravely at Graudenz. The young man beamed; too beautiful these lads!". He's just ... adores his troops (and youngest stepson) so much :')

Wolfram von Richthofen always found studying language to be painful. His foreign language grades were either a borderline pass or an “unsatisfactory.” And "he was a somewhat indulgent father. When he returned home during the war years, Jutta would relate some minor misbehavior of the boys and ask that Wolfram, as their father, discipline them. Wolfram’s reply was usually something on the lines of “boys will be boys” and “they’re good kids—let’s give them a break.”". Then, Wolfram once described the Luftwaffe as “the army’s whore”.

Von Manstein's writing is something else. Even if he did lie about the breakout order in Stalingrad, I still enjoyed his memoirs, to be honest. His words are beautiful, the way he tells a story and the allusions — I got the impression that he was a highly educated person by reading Lost Victories.

Also, von Küchler and Busch's rivalry (which was bitter, unlike the Rommel-Schörner's one), which unfortunately I couldn't remember which book explained that and couldn't find it yet :(

Sources:

Hitler's Generals - Edited by Correlli Barnett

Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb: Tagebuchaufzeichnungen und Lagebeurteilungen aus zwei Weltkriegen

The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel: Chief of the German High Command, 1938-1945 - Edited by Walter Görlitz

Same as 1

Lost Victories by Erich von Manstein

The Trail of The Fox by David Irving

Generalfeldmarschall Fedor von Bock: The War Diary, 1939-1945 || Manstein: Hitler's Greatest General by Melvin Mungo || World War: The Three Vons (Time Magazine, August 18th, 1941

Wolfram von Richthofen Master of The German Air War by James Corum || Stopped at Stalingrad: the Luftwaffe and Hitler's Defeat in The East, 1942-1943 by Prof. Joel Hayward

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"RUSS INFANTRY AMBUSH SOLID WALL OF TANKS DESTROY 71 WITH FIRE," Toronto Star. May 20, 1942. Page 1. ---- Timoshenko's Army Reports Important New Gains in Kharkov Battle - Germans Drive to South to Ease Soviet Pressure ---- SOVIET A.A. GUNNER KULIER AND 8TH VICTIM --- Moscow, May 20 - Thousands of tanks and hundreds of thousands of men fought in an infernal cauldron of destruction before Kharkov today. The German high command was throwing new masses of machines and men into the battle in a vain attempt to stop the Russian advance. Tank fought tank and man fought man in such a tangle that planes, engaged in a war of their own over the smoke-clouded front, could not intervene. The Moscow radio said Hitler had hurled every available tank in the battle which blazed into new fury at strategic points along the whole 1,800-mile Russian front. Field Marshal Fedor von Bock's German forces were reported "in flight" along the 100-mile front before Kharkov. In one sector German tanks attacked in a solid wall against the Russian centre and flanks, Russian infantrymen, holding their fire, took the shock of the attack and, from a thousand foxholes, leaped out with hand grenades.

[greatworldwar2]

• Hermann Hoth

Hermann Hoth was a German army commander and war criminal during World War II. He fought in the Battle of France and as a panzer commander on the Eastern Front.

Born in Neuruppin, German Empire on April 12th, 1885, Hoth joined the army in 1903 and was awarded both classes of the Iron Cross during World War I. He remained in the Reichswehr (the armed forces of the Weimar Republic) in the interwar period. Following the reorganization of the German military into the Wehrmacht in 1935, he was appointed to command the 18th Infantry Division. Hoth was promoted to Lieutenant-General and given command of the XV Motorised Corps in 1938, leading it in the invasion of Poland the following year. During the invasion of France in May 1940, his panzer corps was on Guderian's right flank during their advance through the Ardennes, and contained the 5th Panzer and 7th Panzer Divisions. Hoth was promoted to Generaloberst in July 1940.

In Operation Barbarossa in 1941, Hoth commanded the 3rd Panzer Group which captured Minsk and Vitebsk as part of Army Group Center's operations. In mid July, the 3rd Panzer Group was subordinated to Army Group North to shore up the flanks and attempted to seize Velikie Luki. Hoth's forces were driven back on July 20th, when Red Army forces broke through the German lines, prompting criticism from Field Marshal von Bock, commander of Army Group Center for unnecessarily striking out too far to the north east. In mid to late August, Hoth's forces faced another setback owing to heavy losses and dispersal of efforts: facing the heavily reinforced Soviet 19th Army, he committed the 7th Panzer Division without infantry support, which resulted in what historians described as "debacle". The division's attack ran into fortified Soviet lines and was repulsed with the loss of 30 tanks. As with all German armies on the Eastern Front, Hoth's Panzer Group implemented the Commissar Order. According to reports from subordinate units, the order was carried out on a widespread basis. In October Hoth was appointed commander of the 17th Army in Ukraine. Hoth was an active supporter of the war of annihilation (Vernichtungskrieg) against the Soviet Union, calling on his men to understand the need for "harsh punishment of Jewry". Under Hoth's command, units of the 17th Army took part in the hunt for and murder of Jews in its territory of control. Following the issuance of the Severity Order by Walter von Reichenau in October 1941; he issued the following directive to troops under his command in November 1941. "Every sign of active or passive resistance or any sort of machinations on the part of Jewish-Bolshevik agitators are to be immediately and pitilessly exterminated".

During the Soviet winter offensives of early 1942, Hoth's 17th Army was driven back in the Second Battle of Kharkov. In June 1942, he took over from General Richard Ruoff as commander of 4th Panzer Army. As part of Operation Blue, the German offensive in southern Russia, the army reached the Don River at Voronezh. Hoth was then ordered to drive to Rostov-on-Don. It then advanced to the north in support of the Sixth Army's attempt to capture Stalingrad. In November 1942, the Soviet Operation Uranus broke through the Axis lines and trapped the Sixth Army in Stalingrad. Hoth's panzer army led the unsuccessful attempt to relieve the Sixth Army (Operation Winter Storm), under the overall command of Field Marshal Erich von Manstein's Army Group Don. By December 25th, the operation had failed.

In February 1943, Hoth's 4th Panzer Army participated in the counteroffensive against the Soviet forces advancing in the Donbass region. The operation was hastily prepared and did not receive a name. Later known as Third Battle of Kharkov, it commenced on February 21st, as the 4th Panzer Army launched a counter-attack. The German forces cut off the Soviet mobile spearheads and continued the drive north, retaking Kharkov on March 15th, and Belgorod on March 18th. Exhaustion of both the Wehrmacht and the Red Army coupled with the loss of mobility due to the onset of the spring rasputitsa resulted in the cessation of operations for both sides by mid-March. The counteroffensive left a salient extending into the German area of control, centered around the city of Kursk, and leading up to Operation Citadel. In July 1943, Hoth commanded the 4th Panzer Army in the Battle of Kursk as part of Army Group South. Operation Citadel called for a double envelopment, directed at Kursk, to surround the Soviet defenders and seal off the salient. The Army Group South committed Hoth's 4th Panzer Army, alongside Army Detachment Kempf. Hoth's divisions, reinforced by the II SS Panzer Corps under Paul Hausser, penetrated several Soviet defensive lines, before being brought to a halt in the Battle of Prokhorovka. In the aftermath of Kursk, the Red Army mounted a series of successful offensives that crossed the Dnieper, retook Kiev and pushed the Germans out of eastern Ukraine. In September 1943, Hoth's army was operationally penetrated by Red Army units and was unable to maintain a continuous front line even in retreat. The army crossed the Dnieper south and north of Kiev with heavy losses. On December 10th, 1943, Hoth was relieved of command, and was not recalled until April 1945.

Following the end of the war, Hoth was tried at the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials, in the High Command Trial. During his testimony he sought to explain his November 1941 order aimed at elimination of the "Bolshevik-Jewish resistance". He claimed that his instructions only meant that his troops should be vigilant and were intended to improve morale: "The German soldier in his good nature ... easily forgot that he was still in enemy territory" and that the "power of Bolshevism had to be broken". He insisted that no physical harm came to civilians as the result of this measure, which his troops executed with "clean hands". Hoth maintained that if any Jews had been killed it was due to their connection to crimes against the German forces. "It was a matter of common knowledge in Russia that it was the Jew in particular who participated in a very large extent in sabotage, espionage, etc.," Hoth claimed. Hoth was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. On October 27th, 1948 he was sentenced to 15 years in prison. In January 1951, the sentence was reviewed with no changes. Hoth was released on parole in 1954; his sentence was reduced to time served in 1957. Hermann Hoth died on January 25th, 1971 in Goslar, West Germany, he was 85.

[nebris]

Günther von Kluge (30 October 1882 – 19 August 1944) was a German field marshal during World War II who held commands on both the Eastern and Western Fronts. He commanded the 4th Army of the Wehrmacht during the invasion of Poland in 1939 and the Battle of France in 1940, earning a promotion to Generalfeldmarschall. Kluge went on to command the 4th Army in Operation Barbarossa (the invasion of the Soviet Union) and the Battle for Moscow in 1941.

Amid the crisis of the Soviet counter-offensive in December 1941, Kluge was promoted to command Army Group Centre replacing Field Marshal Fedor von Bock. Several members of the German military resistance to Adolf Hitler served on his staff, including Henning von Tresckow. Kluge was aware of the plotters' activities but refused to offer his support, perhaps thanks to Hitler's scheme of the bribery of senior Wehrmacht officers. His command on the Eastern Front lasted until October 1943 when Kluge was badly injured in a car accident.

Following a lengthy recuperation, Kluge was appointed OB West (Supreme Commander West) in occupied France in July 1944, after his predecessor, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, was dismissed for defeatism. His forces were unable to stop the momentum of the Allied invasion of Normandy, and he began to realise that the war in the West was lost. Although Kluge was not an active conspirator in the 20 July plot, in the aftermath of the failed coup he committed suicide on 19 August 1944, after having been recalled to Berlin for a meeting with Hitler. Kluge was replaced by Field Marshal Walter Model.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnther_von_Kluge

[warpicshistory]

Operation Barbarossa: Field Marshall Fedor von Bock, commanding the German Army Group Center, goes to a staff briefing in Nikolskoya, Russia, to plan further advances on Moscow. October, 1941. #war #history #vintage #retro #guns #gun #ww2 #40s #tank #tanks #1940s #military #battle #combat #campaign #battles #wwii #worldwartwo

[masha-nikita]

The kind of genius friend I have..(cont.)

(previous post here)

Friend: Hey!

Me: *jump*

Friend: You know Fedor is actually a Russian name? It is a Greek-Russian orthodox name, for example, the famous writer FEDOR DOSTOIEVSKI.

Me: *remember* Oh yeah, Fedi's mother is a Russian aristocrat...

Friend: ... meaning Fedor von Bock at least comprehends Russian. What vulgarities of revenge, humiliation and torture the Red Army soldiers must've spewed in front of this captured Wehrmacht field marshal, not knowing that Fedor understands everything they say among themselves. A void opens up in his stomach. He tries not to tremble.

They're saying, hand Fedor von Bock to Lavrentiy Beria, head of NKVD! For once Stalin's slow executioner is going to have a field day breaking this Nazi's frail frame, when Rokossovsky intervened.

Imagine this-

Me- *scream* OMG OMEGAVERSE AGAIN?

Konstantin Rokossovsky- *to his subordinates* I heard our famed enemy does not fold under any pressure, so ditch your lunatic ideas of involving NKVD. Fedor von Bock the Holy Fire is going to lunge at our comrades whatever chance he gets, to hurt and kill, and expects to be killed. Guard him carefully, no knives, no weapons, no suicide tools. I am going to search his person myself. Off to your duties.

*soldiers exit*.

Fedor von Bock- *remains silent*

Rokossovsky- ... *touches* What kind of iron will allows this field marshal to conceal his delicate omega body for so long, especially on the battlefield?

Von Bock- Speak your own language. Your broken German is an affront to humanity and our Führer.

Rokossovsky- *Annoyed at this deliberate mention of Hitler, wraps his hand around Fedor's thin neck, enough to choke*. You'd be an even greater affront to your "Führer" if I put you in heat, and the infant in your body has the hot blood of a Communist coursing through their veins.

HOW CAN SHE DO THIS TO ME?? I HAVE A SOFT SPOT FOR ENEMY SHIPS! (ie- Montgomery x Rommel)

Friend- But the Red Army guys are the biggest chads!

Me- Don't ask a fanfic from me, I can't write fics....

Friend- And I don't speak English.

Me- *TOTALLY DIE*

[masha-nikita]

＊seeing Fedor's very delicate neck＊

Normies- oh, field marshal Fedor von Bock practices extreme self-discipline and abstinence.

Me the stupid weirdo- suffocation kink mode activated.

[masha-nikita]

Field Marshal Fedor von Bock

I can't find a 4 letter nickname.

eh but I call him Fedi all the time don't I my friend?

oops.

[greatworldwar2]

• First Battle of Smolensk (1941)

The First Battle of Smolensk was a battle during the second phase of Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, in World War II. It was fought around the city of Smolensk which began on July 10th, 1941 about 400 km (250 mi) west of Moscow.

On June 22nd, 1941, the Axis nations invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. At first, the campaign met with spectacular success, as the surprised Soviet troops were not able to offer coordinated resistance. After three weeks of fighting, the Germans had reached the Dvina and Dnieper rivers and planned for a resumption of the offensive. The main attack aimed at Moscow, was carried out by Army Group Centre (Fedor von Bock). Its next target on the way to the Soviet capital was the city of Smolensk. After their initial defeats, the Red Army began to recover and took measures to ensure a more determined resistance and new defensive line was established around Smolensk. Stalin placed Field Marshal Semyon Timoshenko in command and transferred five armies out of the strategic reserve to Timoshenko. These armies had to conduct counter-offensives to blunt the German drive. The German high command (OKW) was not aware of the Soviet build-up until they encountered them on the battlefield.

Prior to the German attack, the Soviets launched a counter-offensive; on July 6th, the 7th and 5th Mechanized Corps of the Soviet 20th Army attacked with about 1,500 tanks near Lepiel. The result was a disaster, as the offensive ran directly into the anti-tank defenses of the German 7th Panzer Division and the two Soviet mechanized corps were virtually wiped out. On July 10th, Guderian's 2nd Panzer Group began a surprise attack over the Dnieper, his forces overran the weak 13th Army and by 13 July, Guderian had passed Mogilev, trapping several Soviet divisions. His spearhead unit, the 29th Motorised Division, was already within 18 km (11 mi) of Smolensk.

The Soviets transferred additional troops from newly formed armies into the region around Smolensk, namely the 29th, 30th, 28th, and 24th Armies. These newly built formations would, immediately upon arrival, start a heavy counter-attack against the German forces around the Smolensk area from July 21st on. This put a heavy strain on the overextended Panzer forces, which had to cover a large area around the perimeter. However, poor coordination and logistics on the part of the Soviets allowed the Germans to successfully defend against these offensive efforts, while continuing to close the encirclement. Finally, on July 27th, the Germans were able to link up and close the pocket east of Smolensk, trapping large portions of 16th, 19th, and 20th Armies. Under the leadership of 20th Army, Soviet troops managed to break out of the pocket in a determined effort a few days later, assisted by the Soviet offensive efforts along the Smolensk front line. In the end, about 300,000 men were taken prisoner when the encirclement was re-established and the pocket eliminated. The Soviet attacks would last until July 30th, when the Germans finally repelled the last of them.

The Battle of Smolensk was another severe defeat for the Red Army in the opening phase of Operation Barbarossa. For the first time, the Soviets tried to implement a coordinated counter-attack against a large part of the front; although this counter-attack turned into a military disaster, the stiffening resistance showed that the Soviets were not yet defeated and that the Blitzkrieg towards Moscow was not going to be an easy undertaking. Dissent within the German high command and political leadership was exacerbated. The leaders of the General Staff, Franz Halder and Brauchitsch and commanders like Bock, Hoth and Guderian counselled against dispersing the German armoured units and to concentrate on Moscow. Hitler reiterated the lack of importance of Moscow and of strategic encirclements and ordered a concentration on economic targets such as Ukraine, the Donets Basin and the Caucasus, with more tactical encirclements to weaken the Soviets further. The German offensive effort became more fragmented, leading to the Battle of Kiev and the Battle of Uman. The battles were German victories but costly in time, men and equipment on their approach towards Moscow, allowing the Soviets time to prepare the defenses of the city.