Gerd Von Rundstedt - Posthumous Reputation

Posthumous Reputation

Rundstedt was buried, in full uniform, in Hannover-Stöcken cemetery. The ceremony was attended by over 2,000 people, mainly Army veterans. The German and Lower Saxony governments paid no official attention to his death. (Had he lived longer, this might not have been so. Manstein was buried with full state and military honours in 1973, despite being a convicted war criminal.) The fact that he did not stand trial for war crimes, but was released on health grounds, meant that he was never legally exonerated, and has therefore never been officially "rehabilitated" in Germany or by the German Army. There are no memorials to him in Germany.

In strictly military terms, Rundstedt's reputation remains high. He was a diligent and talented staff officer in World War I and the Weimar period, and then a field commander with a firm strategic grip. His style of command in the Polish, French and Russian campaigns was admired and respected by friends and foes, although he was already past his best by 1941 and increasingly preferred to delegate to his field commanders. His dismissal in 1941 marked the high point of his military career, since he was clearly right to insist on the withdrawal from Rostov. As commander in the West, he was largely a figurehead, but as late as June 1944 he showed both good judgement and vigorous action in response to the Allied landings in France.

Politically and morally, however, history's judgement has been harsher. Although Rundstedt resisted Hitler's interference in the Russian campaign, and was dismissed for doing so, thereafter he refused to confront Hitler even on strictly military matters, let alone on political ones. Given his standing, he was one of the few officers who might have persuaded Hitler to follow more rational courses of action. Despite his aristocratic contempt for the Nazis, he continued to show deference to Hitler right to the end, as shown by his acceptance of the position of OB West in August 1944, when he knew he would be no more than a figurehead, and even more so by his visit to Hitler in March 1945, when the German people were already plunged into the catastrophe of defeat. He knew the Ardennes offensive would be a disaster, yet retained a post which gave him nominal responsibility for it.

It is Rundstedt's steadfast refusal to lend his support to any of the plans to overthrow Hitler's government, however, which is most held against him, particularly in a modern Germany which has turned its back on militarism and has elevated the 20 July plotters to the status of national heroes. Rundstedt knew in general terms all about the anti-Hitler conspiracies in the Army, although not about the 20 July bomb plot itself. He did not report any of those who approached him for support, but he gave them no sympathy either. He showed his real attitude after 20 July, when he condemned the plotters as traitors and agreed to preside over the Honour Court that drummed them out of the Army and handed them over to Freisler.

Rundstedt's defence, both at the time and after the war, was that as a soldier he had a duty to obey the orders of the legitimate government, whoever that was, and whatever the orders were. He would have fully agreed with Manstein's remark to Rudolf von Gersdorff: "Preussische Feldmarschälle meutern nicht!" ("Prussian field marshals do not mutiny!") This attitude by the Prussian and German officer corps dated back to the time of Federick the Great, and had evolved at a time when the Prussian state largely existed to serve the interests of the Army. It had already become dangerously obsolete by the time of World War I. When applied to a regime such as Hitler's, which may or may not have been legitimate, but which was also clearly both criminal and recklessly incompetent, this attitude became disastrous. In failing to see this, Rundstedt was of course far from alone, but his status as the senior officer of the Army made his responsibility all the greater.

Since the charges brought against Manstein were almost identical to those brought against Rundstedt, it is worth quoting the remarks made by the prosecutor at Manstein's trial, Sir Arthur Comyns Carr: "Contemporary German militarism flourished briefly with its recent ally, National Socialism, as well as or better than it had in the generals of the past. Many of these have made a mockery of the soldier's oath of obedience to military orders. When it suits their purpose they say they had to obey; when confronted with Hitler's brutal crimes which are shown to have been within their general knowledge, they say they disobeyed. The truth is they actively participated in all these crimes, or sat silent and acquiescent, witnessing the commission of crimes on a scale larger and more shocking than the world has ever had the misfortune to know."

These comments may fairly be applied to Rundstedt. He was left in no doubt by Hitler and Himmler what German occupation would mean for the people of Poland and the Soviet Union, yet he applied his military talents to the conquest of both countries. He approved of the Reichenau Order and must have known what it portended for the Jews of Ukraine, yet "sat silent and acquiescent" while the Einsatzgruppen did their work. He claimed that the Army would have liked to have fed the three million Soviet POWs, yet he apparently took no interest in their fate once they were taken to the rear. He asserted that he had an absolute duty as an officer to obey orders, yet claimed to have disobeyed both the Commissar Order in Russia and the Commando Order in France. These inconsistencies were exposed both at Nuremberg, in the trials of the Einsatzgruppen leaders (who also claimed they had a duty to obey distasteful orders) and in the 1947 trials of senior officers, and in Manstein's trial in 1949. They would certainly also have been exposed if Rundstedt had come to trial. On this basis his biographer concludes: "If Rundstedt had stood trial, it is clear from the Manstein case that he would have been found guilty of some of the charges levelled against him."