Walther Von Reichenau - Barbarossa

Barbarossa

During the June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, von Reichenau again commanded the 6th Army, which captured Kiev and Kharkov. During the offensive, Reichenau inspected every single Soviet tank he came across. He would enter each tank and, using a ruler, he would examine the thickness of the armour. According to an account by general staff Paul Jordan, upon examining a T-34 tank, von Reichenau told his officers, "If the Russians ever produce it on an assembly line, we will have lost the war."

Politically, von Reichenau was an anti-Semite who equated Jewry with Bolshevism and the perceived Asian threat to Europe. The infamous October 1941 "Reichenau Order" paved the way for mass murder by instructing the officers thus:

"In this eastern theatre, the soldier is not only a man fighting in accordance with the rules of the art of war...For this reason the soldier must learn fully to appreciate the necessity for the severe but just retribution that must be meted out to the subhuman species of Jewry...".

All Jews were henceforth to be treated as de facto partisans, and commanders were directed that they be either summarily shot or handed over to the Einsatzgruppen execution squads of the SS-Totenkopfverbände as the situation dictated. Upon hearing of the Severity Order, Reichenau's superior Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt expressed "complete agreement" with it, and sent out a circular to all of the Army generals under his command urging them to send out their own versions of the Severity Order, which would impress upon the troops the need to exterminate Jews. During the Nuremberg trials, however, Von Rundstedt denied any knowledge of that order before his capture by the Allies, although he acknowledged that Reichenau's orders "may have reached my army group and probably got into the office". Some historians such as Walter Görlitz have sought to defend von Reichenau, summarizing the above order as "demanding that the troops keep their distance from the Russian civilian population."

Reichenau supported the work of the SS Einsatzgruppen in exterminating the Jews in the occupied Soviet territories. On 19 December 1941 Hitler sacked Walther von Brauchitsch as Commander-in-Chief and tried to appoint von Reichenau to the post. But again the senior Army leaders rejected von Reichenau as being "too political" and Hitler appointed himself instead.