Benoît Lemay - Erich Von Manstein: Hitlers Master Strategist

Could one consider the German field marshal Erich von Manstein the greatest operational genius, if not the best strategist, of World War II? Although this may be the opinion of numerous specialists in the field, an understanding of his role in German military history remains to this day rather limited in the West. One could explain this by a certain centro-Americanist perspective, which has primarily focused on the West European and North African theaters of operations. Since the majority of Mansteins military achievements occurred on the battlefields of Bolshevik Russia, Anglo-Saxon and French historians have accorded him only the smallest amount of interest, in comparison, for example, to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, whose principal military exploits took place in France and North Africa. However, relatively speaking, the latter had military responsibilities much less important than those of Manstein, given that the outcome of the war was decided on the Eastern Front, where the German Army had concentrated the largest proportion of its effort and suffered 85 percent of its losses, thus making Russia the tomb of the German Army.

Even if the majority of Western specialists recognize the primacy of the Eastern Front, it has not necessarily inspired the analysis of their works, which explains to a certain extent why Mansteins military role, for example, during the Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 194243, remains to be fully defined. One could make a similar remark regarding his role on the Western Front, for a debate exists as to whether or not he was truly the author of the Sickle Cut Plan (Sichelschnitt), the basis of the Wehrmachts lightning victory over the French and British armies in May and June 1940.

Be that as it may, leading military historians almost unanimously consider Manstein the greatest strategic talent and the cleverest practitioner of mobile warfare among the German generals of the Second World War. His understanding of the operational dimension of modern warfare, which in particular involved the dualistic relationship between armor and combat aircraft, and his capacity for improvisation and flexibility during unforeseen events, made him the most talented of the Wehrmachts senior officers and the most feared by the Red Armys high command. A master in the art of commanding audacious offensives, and surprise and violent counterattacks, he was also able when necessary to orchestrate vast, methodical, and well-ordered withdrawals.

In his work The Other Side of the Hill, drawing from conversations and correspondences with German generals who were prisoners of war after 1945, the eminent military historian Basil Henry Liddell Hart writes: The ablest of all the German generals was probably Field Marshal Erich von Manstein. That was the verdict of most of those with whom I discussed the war, from [Field Marshal Gerd von] Rundstedt downwards. He had a superb strategic sense, combined with a greater understanding of mechanized weapons than any of the generals who did not belong to the tank school itself. Yet in contrast to some of the single-track enthusiasts he did not lose sight of the importance of improving alternative weapons and defense. He was responsible, shortly before the war, for developing the armoured assault gun, which proved invaluable later. Liddell Hart confirmed this perspective several years later in his monumental History of the Second World War, underscoring there that Manstein was considered by his friends to be the best strategist among the young generals.

Another military historian of great standing, John Keegan, estimates that Field Marshal Manstein possessed one of the best military minds in the Wehrmacht. In Christian Schneiders view, Manstein was so brilliant that he was unanimously recognizedas much by his comrades-in-arms as by the military experts of Germany, as well as by both the victorious and neutral countriesas the most competent German general of the Second World War. Hitler himself considered Manstein the best brain that the staff has produced. David Irving goes so far to declare that Hitlers respect for General von Mansteins ability bordered on fear. Such a fear is without a doubt explained by Mansteins personal ambitions and the authority which he enjoyed within the officers corps. Von Manstein, asserts Albert Seaton, was indeed very ambitious, a man of operational genius whose great abilities were clouded by a pose of arrogance and conceit; he wanted the powers of a von Hindenburg and the fame of the elder von Moltke, with a unified Oberkommando with himself at its head.

In the preface to the 1958 English edition of Mansteins Memoirs, volume one, Liddell Hart writes: The general verdict among the German generals I interrogated in 1945 was that Field Marshal von Manstein had proved the ablest commander in their army, and the man they had most desired to become its commander in chief. Richard Brett-Smith agrees wholeheartedly when he states that Manstein would have been accepted by all of the generals on the Eastern Front to fill the post of commander in chief with full operational authority. Von Manstein, he adds, was the greatest German general of the war, and probably the greatest of any participating nation.

Many generals of the Wehrmacht shared this opinion, beginning with von Rundstedt, the eldest of the German field marshals. Colonel General Heinz Guderian, patriarch of the panzer divisions (Panzer divisionen), stated that Manstein was our most brilliant operational brain. Generals Walther Warlimont and Gnther Blumentritt both asserted that he was the most brilliant strategist of all our generals, while General Siegfried Westphal declared that: [] of all the general staff officers, von Manstein possessed the greatest strategic and military talents overall. With an eye on all of the possibilities of the future, always full of new ideas that were good and often brilliant, he was an organizational genius and a difficult subordinate, but a generous superior. He was also always among the first when the interests of the army were at stake.