Franz Halder - Interwar Era

Interwar Era

Between 1919 and 1920 Halder served with the Reichswehr War Ministry Training Branch. Between 1921 and 1923 he was a Tactics Instructor with the Wehrkreis VII in Munich.

In March 1924 Halder was promoted to major and by 1926 he served as the Director of Operations (Oberquartiermeister of Operations: O.Qu.I.) on the General Staff of the Wehrkreis VII in Munich. In February 1929 he was promoted to Oberstleutnant (lieutenant colonel), and from October 1929 through late 1931 he served on the Training staff in the Reichswehr Ministry.

After being promoted to Oberst (colonel) in December 1931, Halder served as the Chief of Staff, Wehrkreis Kdo VI, in Münster (Westphalia) through early 1934. During the 1930s the German military staff thought that Poland might attack the detached German province of East Prussia. As such, they reviewed plans as to how to defend East Prussia.

After being promoted to Generalmajor, equal to a U.S./British Brigadier general, in October 1934, Halder served as the Commander of the 7th Infantry Division in Munich.

Recognized as a fine staff officer and planner, in August 1936 Halder was promoted to Generalleutnant (rank of a division commander, hence equivalent to a US Army Major General). He then became the director of the Manoeuvres Staff. Shortly thereafter, he became director of the Training Branch (Oberquartiermeister of Training, O.Qu.II), on the General Staff of the Army, in Berlin between October 1937 and February 1938. During this period he directed important training maneuvers, the largest held since the reintroduction of conscription in 1935.

On 1 February 1938 Halder was promoted to General der Artillerie (rank of a corps commander, equivalent to a US Army three-star General). Around this date General Wilhelm Keitel was attempting to reorganize the entire upper leadership of the German Army. Keitel had asked Halder to become Chief of the General Staff (Oberquartiermeister of operations, training & supply; O.Qu.I ) and report to General Walther von Reichenau. However, Halder declined as he felt he could not work with Reichenau very well, due to a personality dispute. As Keitel recognized Halder's superior military planning skills, Keitel met with Hitler and enticed him to appoint General Walther von Brauchitsch as commander-in-chief of the German Army. Halder then accepted becoming Chief of the General Staff of the Army (Oberkommando des Heeres) on 1 September 1938, and succeeded General Ludwig Beck.

A week later, Halder presented plans to Hitler on how to invade Czechoslovakia with a pincer movement by General Gerd von Rundstedt and General Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb. Instead, Hitler directed that Reichenau should make the main thrust into Prague. Neither invasion plan was necessary once Mussolini persuaded Hitler and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain back to the bargaining table in Munich. In the run up to the war, Halder — in an attempt to avoid what they were certain would be a catastrophic war for Germany — was the main actor in a plot with several other generals in the Wehrmacht and Abwehr to remove Hitler from power. The plotters had even put it all in place, ready to go at Halder's command, if Hitler gave the order to proceed with the planned invasion. The plot included a plan to kill Hitler and say "he died trying to escape" (they all agreed he would be too dangerous to keep alive). However, on 29 September Chamberlain capitulated to Hitler’s demands, and the British and French surrendered the largely German populated Czech region of Sudetenland to Germany, with Hitler promising to stop there. (Which promise Hitler broke the following spring.) Halder put an immediate stop to the coup attempt, only hours away from reality, as peace had been preserved – for the moment. There would be no war with France and England over the Sudetenland. Hitler's popularity reached an all-time high. A coup then was not possible, nor desirable. The catastrophe Halder and the other generals feared was averted. On 1 October German troops entered the Sudetenland.