Gerd Von Rundstedt - Facing Trial

Facing Trial

Rundstedt returned to Island Farm to await developments. Otto John, a German lawyer who had been active in the German resistance, arrived in October to interview the prisoners and make recommendations on possible future war crimes prosecutions. John and Rundstedt got on well, and in November John arranged for Hans Gerd von Rundstedt, who was suffering from the early stages of throat cancer, to be released and sent home. In April 1947 the Allied War Crimes Investigation Group operating in Germany recommended that Rundstedt should not face prosecution. The U.S. government, however, did not accept this recommendation and insisted that Rundstedt, Manstein, Brauchitsch and General Rudolf Strauss (an Army commander on the Russian front in 1941) should stand trial. All four were in British custody. In August Telford Taylor, the U.S. Chief Counsel for War Crimes, formally advised the British Attorney-General, Hartley Shawcross, of his intentions. The grounds for the prosecution would be the Commissar Order of 1941, the Commando Order of 1942, the murder of Soviet prisoners-of-war, the conscription and deportation of civilians in occupied countries as forced labour, and the responsibility of the named officers for the invasions of Poland, France, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and other countries.

The British, however, were extremely reluctant to act. British public opinion had rapidly shifted (as it did after World War I) away from anti-German sentiment towards a desire for reconciliation. There was a strong feeling that putting elderly and sick men on trial three years after the war was unjust. There was also the fact that many of the events referred to by the Americans had taken place in the Soviet Union and Poland, which were now, with the onset of the Cold War, political adversaries and no longer co-operating with western war crimes investigations. The British Military Governor in Germany, Air Marshal Sir Sholto Douglas, was strongly opposed. He wrote: "We are apparently prepared to send these men, including one who is 73, to trial by the Americans. I frankly do not like this. I feel that if the Americans wish to be critical in our inaction in trying war criminals, I should prefer that they should continue to criticise rather than that we should commit an injustice in order to avoid their criticism."

Rundstedt and the other officers knew nothing of the proposed prosecutions. In June his son Hans Gerd had been admitted to hospital and it soon became apparent that his cancer was inoperable. In December Rundstedt was granted compassionate leave by British government to visit the hospital in Hannover where Hans Gerd was being treated. On Christmas Day he saw his wife for the first time since May 1945, and his grandchildren for the first time since 1941. Hans Gerd died on 12 January 1948: "a blow from which he never really recovered." On Rundstedt's return he was given a medical examination. The doctors reported "a markedly senile general physique", chronic arterio-sclerosis, osteo-arthritis in most of his joints, and failing memory. The examiners advised that to put him on trial would "adversely affect his health." A similar recommendation was made about Brauchitsch, although Manstein was judged fit to stand trial. As a result, the Secretary of War, Emmanuel Shinwell, recommended to Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin that the prosecutions should not proceed. Bevin was put in a quandry, fearing the reactions of countries such as France and Belgium if Rundstedt were to be released. In March the Soviet government formally demanded Rundstedt's extradition to the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, the Americans had requested that Rundstedt and Manstein be brought to Nuremberg to appear as a witness in the High Command Trial, in which a number of prominent generals, including Leeb, Blaskowitz (who committed suicide during the trial), Hugo Sperrle, Georg von Küchler and Hermann Hoth were on trial for war crimes. In May, therefore, Rundstedt was transferred from Island Farm to a military hospital in Norfolk. On 22 July Rundstedt left the hospital and the next day he and Manstein were flown to Nuremberg. But the presiding judge in the case ruled that he would not allow Rundstedt or Manstein to testify unless they were first informed whether they were themselves in danger of prosecution. Thus Rundstedt and Manstein discovered for the first time that the Americans had requested their indictment. As a result, they refused to testify. They were then transferred to a military hospital near Munster. Here conditions were so bad that Brauchitsch went on a hunger strike.

In August the matter become public when Liddell Hart launched a press campaign to have the four officers released. He was supported by figures such as Michael Foot, Victor Gollancz and Lord De L'Isle, VC. On 27 August the government responded by formally announcing that the four would be tried by a British military court in Hamburg. Items in Rundstedt's indictment included: "the maltreatment and killing of civilians and prisoners of war... killing hostages, illegal employment of prisoners of war, deportation of forced labour to Germany... mass execution of Jews... and other war crimes, yet to be specified." On 24 September the four were moved to a military hospital in Hamburg, where they were allowed to be visited by their families. It was here that Brauchitsch died suddenly of heart failure on 18 October. This led to a renewed outcry in Britain for the trial to be abandoned. Nevertheless, Bevin was determined to press ahead, and on 1 January 1949 Rundstedt, Manstein and Strauss were formally charged. Hugo Laternser was engaged as Rundstedt's counsel, and Liddell Hart and others in Britain collected material for the defence. The Bishop of Chichester, George Bell, announced that he would bring in a motion in the House of Lords critical of the government. This was a serious threat since the Lords had the power to compel the government to produce documents.

By April the public debate in Britain was becoming so damaging that the government decided that the best option was to back down as gracefully as it could. The government's resolve was stiffened by the refusal of the Soviet government to provide any evidence for the trial. Further medical reports were commissioned, with varying results. A team of British Army doctors eventually reported that Rundstedt and Strauss were unfit to stand trial, and the government used this as a pretext to abandon the trial. On 28 April Cabinet considered the medical reports, and asked the Lord Chancellor, Lord Jowitt, to prepare a report for its next meeting. On 5 May Cabinet accepted his recommendation that Rundstedt and Strauss be released, but that Manstein's trial should go ahead. Rundstedt was formally advised of his release on 19 May, but since he had nowhere to go he stayed in the hospital until 26 May, when he finally left British custody and went to the home of his brother Udo at Ratzeburg in Schleswig-Holstein.