Fensch War Dairies from Inside Hitler's Headquarters

1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9963154-8-7
Verlag: New Century Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 200 Seiten

'The world will hold its breath when Operation Barbarossa is executed' --Adolf Hitler. Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Nazi Germany's invasion of Soviet Russia. Thus German/Nazi historian Helmuth Greiner quoted Hitler. Greiner served as Custodian of the War Diary in Hitler's Headquarters August 1939 until April, 1943, when he was dismissed, apparently for not being sufficiently pro-Nazi. He survived the war without being sent to a death camp or shot. His Diary entries were ordered destroyed but were reconstructed between 1945 and 1949. Greiner's Diary entries reveal major decisions by Hitler; movements by vast Nazi Wehrmacht armies, the Nazi air force, the Luftwaffe, and navy, the Kriegsmarine; the size of the Nazi military; and mentions many major Nazi generals. Of particular interest are Greiner's separate diary entries for Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of Soviet Russia, This file is a 126 page document. Greiner begins by revealing how top Nazi generals were horrified by Hitler's decision to invade Russia, convinced, as he was, the invasion could crush Russia in three or, at the most, four months. These documents were translated by U.S. Army language experts after World War Two. FIRST PUBLICATION IN ENGLISH -- from U.S. Army translations. 'War Diaries from Inside Hitler's Headquarters' should be considered a major addition to research and study of World War Two, and the Nazi military machine. These pages are reproductions of post- World War Two U.S. Army translations. Introduction, 336 text pages.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fensch, Thomas

Leseproben

FOREWORD

This manuscript is part of a narrative history of events in the German Armed Forces Supreme Command Headquarters during World War II. The writer, Hellmuth GREINER, was charged with writing the War Diary at that headquarters from August 1939 to April 22, 1943. He has based his work on notes taken at various conferences, copies of final drafts for entry in the War Diary, copies of HITLER’S directives, orders and documents he was able to save from destruction at great personal risk.

With the aid of these sources and the trained mind and memory of a professional historian, he has presented a vivid picture of HITLER’S method of command as well as his reaction to reverses end success and the various other factors which influenced decisions in both the military and the political spheres.

In addition to a general description of procedures in the supreme headquarters it includes details of organization and the composition of HITLER’S immediate staff. Brief graphic descriptions are also included of the outstanding characteristics of its chief members who served HITLER in his capacity as Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and Commander in Chief of the Army.

The completed work to date is divided into a number of manuscripts. For easy reference the manuscripts have been listed chronologically for inclusion in the English copies.

LOUIS M. NAWROCKY
Lt Colonel, Armor
Chief, Foreign Military
Studies Branch

Author

Helmuth GREINER

Ministerialrat im OKW1

Born: 30 April 1892

  Leipzig, Saxony

Helmuth GREINER joined the Army in December 1913, entering the 132d Prussian Infantry Regiment as an officer candidate, and in July 1914 was promoted lieutenant with commission dated 23 June 1912. In World War I he served at the various fronts from the outbreak of war to June 1917, with two brief breaks to recover from wounds. In June 1917 he was detached to serve as military attache on the staff of the German Embassy in Bern, Switzerland, from which he was transferred to the Historical Division of Army General Staff, Berlin, in January 1919, remaining there until discharged from the Army in March 1920, with rank of captain. Less than a month later GREINER was appointed archivist in the Military History Section of the Historical Branch of the Reichs Archives at Potsdam. He remained in this service until 1935, and it was during this period that he continued his studies in national economy and history at the Berlin university from 1921-24. Also during this period he did a great deal of writing on the German official history of World War I and was promoted Archivrat.

On 1 April 1935 GREINER was re-called for service in the Wehrmacht, promoted Regierungsrat (equivalent to major in rank) and attached to the re-organized Historical Division of the Reichs Archives, a branch of the Military History Research Institute of the Army. On 18 August 1939, he was transferred to the National Defense Branch, which later was re-designated Wehrmacht Operations Staff (Wehrmachtsfuehrungsstab), in Hitler’s headquarters, as Keeper of the War Diary. Promoted Oberregierungsrat on 1 May 1936 and Ministerialrat on 1 October 1940, GREINER was removed from his post on 22 April 1943, because of his known antinationalsocialist sentiments, Following this he was detached to the Office of the German General Attached to Italian Armed Forces Headquarters in Rome for a brief spell, 15 June - 31 July 1943.

From that date to the end of the War, GREINER was not employed, being considered politically unreliable. He was captured by US forces at Oberhof, Thuringia on 4 April 1945.

In addition to his career in the civil service and the Wehrmacht, GREINER is a well-known writer on military subjects in the historical vein, his published works including, VETERANS OF WORLD WAR I, a collection of essays by soldiers of that War; THE 1916 CAMPAIGN IN RUMANIA, written for the Swedish General Staff; THE 1916 INVASION OF BELGIUM AND THE FIRST MAJOR BATTLES; THE FRENCH MOBILIZATION IN 1914; THE AMERICAN WAR OF SECESSION; GUERILLA WARFARE IN 1870-71 and FRENCH MOBILIZATION PLANS, 1885-1914, some of which were written specifically as instruction manuals for use in training.

GREINER SERIES

OKW, WORLD WAR II

MS # C-065 b

WAR DIARY WEHRMACHT OPERATIONS STAFF, Aug-Nov 40

MS # C-065 j

SHEETS OF WAR DIARY OF THE DEFENSE BRANCH OF THE WEHRMACHT OPERATIONS STAFF

MS # C-065 m

RECORDS OF SITUATION EVALUATIONS OF THE NATIONAL DEFENSE BRANCH 8 Aug 40 - 25 Jun 41

MS # C-065 l

WAR DIARY WEHRMACHT OPERATIONS STAFF, Dec - Mar 1941

MS # C-065 k

WAR DIARY NOTES 12 Aug 42 - 17 May 1943

MS # C-065 a

POLAND 1939 (I)

MS # C-065 c

WESTERN AND NORTHERN EUROPE 1940 (II)

MS # C-065 d

Operation FELIX (IV)

MS # C-065 h

ITALY, WINTER 1940-41 (V)

MS # C-065 e

AFRICA 1941 (VI)

MS # C-065 f

BALKANS 1941 (VII)

MS # C-065 g

Operation BARBAROSSA (VIII)

MS # C-065 i

Operation SEELOEWE (III)

MS # C-059

Helmuth GREINER

Notes on the Situation Reports and Discussions at HITLER’s

Headquarters from 12 August 1942 to 17 March 1943

Prefatory Remarks

The following notes are based on the memoranda which I wrote in the capacity of Custodian of the War Diary of the Wehrmacht Operations Staff during the daily situation reports and discussions at HITLER’s headquarters from August 1942 to March 1943. The contents of the War Diary written during that time were based on these memoranda. All volumes containing the text and appendices of the War Diary were destroyed on orders of General WINTER, at that time Deputy Chief of the Wehrmacht Operations Staff, at Lake Hintersee in Upper-Bavaria on 1 May 1945. In the following pages, I have attempted to restore the War Diary, at least partially on the basis of the memoranda which are still in my possession. During the period from 26 June 1941 to 11 August 1942, I personally destroyed all my handwritten memoranda, with the exception of some particularly important notes, as soon as I had used them for the writing of the War Diary. On 18 March 1943, I went on leave for an extended period of time. Upon my return, on 22 April 1943, I was relieved of my position as Custodian of the War Diary by HITLER for political reasons. Therefore, the following notes are confined to the above-mentioned period.

On 16 July 1942, HITLER’S headquarters were established in the Ukraine, in a small triangular area of woodland, 15 kilometers north-northeast of Winniza at the highway to Shitomir near the village of Strishawka2. HITLER and his most intimate advisers and his military staff, the field echelons of the Wehrmacht Operations Staff, were quartered there in log cabins and prefabricated barracks respectively. The camp had been given the code name "Wehrwolf." Headquarters of the Army High Command was located in Winniza after 16 July 1942.

On 12 August 1942, the first day covered by these notes, the situation on the Eastern Front was as follows:

On 28 June 1942 the great summer offensive of Army Group South, the so-called Operation BLAU, had been launched with the drive of the Second Army on Woronesh. In the course of this offensive, the German attack forces, composed of the Second Army, Sixth Army, Fourth Panzer Army, First Panzer Army and Seventeenth Army, had reached the Don in the area below Woronesh and had taken Rostov on 24 July 1942. In the course of the following days, Generalfeldmarschall LIST’s Army Group A, which had been formed on 7 July 1942 by combining Armeegruppe Ruoff3 (comprising the Seventeenth Army and Rumanian Third Army) and First Panzer Army, crossed the lower Don for a thrust into the Caucasus. On 11 August 1942, Army Group A had reached the lower Kuban with the Rumanian Third Army at Slawjanskaja, with the Seventeenth Army on both sides of Krasnodar and with elements of the First Panzer Army in the area around Maikop. Mountain troops of this army had advanced in the upper valleys of the Kuban and its tributaries into the High Caucasus, while its motorized forces, advancing toward the Caucasian oil fields, had taken Pjatigorsk on 9 August 1942.

In the sector of Army Group B, (Commander in Chief Generaloberst Freiherr Von Weichs) which also had been formed from Army Group South, the Fourth Panzer Army had crossed the Don at Zymljanskaja, and, in a drive toward the Northeast, had reached the southern edge of Stalingrad, while the Sixth Army had occupied the great loop of the Don north of Kalatsch from 7 to 12 August 1942. The Italian Eighth Army and the Hungarian Second Army were holding covering positions along the sector of the middle Don. The bridgehead and cornerstone of Woronesh and Army Group’s northern flank between Woronesh and Liwny were held by the Second Army.

In the sectors of Army Group Center and Army Group North, no major changes in the front line established at the conclusion of the fierce defensive battles of the preceding winter had occurred. The line extended from a...