Finally, it must be pointed out that the Green Folder administration scheme never became a reality, since we failed to conquer the Soviet Union. It was a hypothetical plan that could not be put into practice. The stress placed on it at the Nuremberg trials therefore seems highly excessive and distorted.
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: Roon’s philosophical defense of the Green Folder — possibly the cruelest set of administrative plans ever put on paper — will no doubt be indigestible to the average reader in the United States. However, it was when I read this passage that I decided to translate
The Turn South
Basing themselves largely upon Guderian, many writers further maintain that Hitler lost the war in mid-July, after our amazing three-week advance to Smolensk — two-thirds of the way to Moscow — by ordering Guderian’s panzer armies southward to help Rundstedt close the Kiev pocket, instead of allowing him to drive on. The contention is that precious weeks were thereby lost and the armored equipment became excessively worn, so that the punch was taken out of the final assault on the capital.
There are several gaping holes in the “Turn South” critique. First of all, the closing of the Kiev pocket east of the Dnieper was the greatest military land victory in the history of mankind. At a blow, Germany killed or captured armed forces and equipment equal to almost half the entire Wehrmacht force with which she began the invasion of the Soviet Union! It is a little hard to dismiss such a mighty triumph as a “tactical diversion.” With this victory, we won secure possession of the riches of southern Russia, which alone enabled us to fight on in the years ahead and to come close to winning. We secured the breadbasket, the industrial basin, and the fuel reserve, which Germany had sought for so long, and which was the whole pivot of Adolf Hitler’s politics.
True, Clausewitz says the destruction of the enemy’s armed forces, not the winning of territorial or economic objectives is the chief aim of warfare. But the much-criticized “Turn South” achieved a big destruction of enemy armed forces.
Suppose that vast southern army had escaped and flanked us? Even if we had destroyed the armies in front of Moscow and occupied the capital, would we have been any better off than Napoleon? Napoleon essentially followed a Guderian strategy, striking for the “center of gravity” in Moscow. The trouble was, once he got there, that he could not feed his men or his horses, he was threatened on the left and right flanks, and after a while there was nothing to do but retreat to fathomless catastrophe.
We who planned Barbarossa, and watched it unfold, were seldom without a copy of Caulaincourt’s
The contention that the drive through the center was weakened is itself rather weakened by the plain fact that after finishing his assigned duties in the south, Guderian returned north and jumped off for our spectacular September and October victories. There was nothing particularly enfeebled in that performance!
I have not hesitated to point out Adolf Hitler’s amateurish errors in other situations; some of these were disastrous, but the turn south was a sound, necessary, and successful move.
To the Towers of the Kremlin
The remnants of the red Army in the north and center, beaten and broken once again, went staggering back into the enormous spaces of Russia. Hordes were captured, but more hordes abandoned tanks and guns to slip through our encirclements in the night. In the north all our objectives were achieved except the actual taking of Leningrad. The city was laid under siege which lasted nine hundred days, in which it withered into helplessness and almost perished. The Baltic coast was ours, so that we could supply our northern forces by sea. We were in operational touch with our Finnish allies. In the south we invested the Crimea and were racing for the Caucasus oil fields. And in the center, giant armored pincers closed on Moscow from north and south, actually penetrating the suburbs. Bock’s indomitable infantry, marching up the road from Smolensk with amazing speed, was smashing forward in a frontal thrust toward the Bolshevik capital. Panic seized Moscow. October 16 is known to this day in Russian war literature as the date of the “Great Skedaddle,” when the foreign diplomats, many government departments, and a large number of Soviet big shots, together with a huge throng of civilians, abandoned the city and scuttled east for the safety of the Urals.
Stalin stayed behind in Moscow, making desperate speeches, and ordering women and children out to dig trenches in the path of our oncoming armies. On the central Russian plain it was just beginning to snow. The Rasputitza had already begun in September — the autumn mud time. God knows it was hard to advance under such conditions, but we advanced. Never has an armed force shown greater energy and spirit under greater difficulties. A remarkable elan glowed alike in the highest general and the humblest foot soldier. The end of the long road, the incredible nine-year march of the German nation under the Fuhrer, was in view across muddy, snowy wild plains, on the misty Russian horizon lit by a low cold red sun. Our advance patrols saw the towers of the Kremlin. World empire at last lay within the German grasp.
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: General von Roon is tolerant throughout of Hitler’s Barbarossa performance, perhaps because he took part in the planning and was in Hitler’s favor at the time. Other historians contend that the armies caught in the Kiev pocket were rabble. The hard nut of Russian resistance lay around Moscow, they say, and destruction of these forces in October would have ended the war. The land campaigns in the Soviet Union are not in my field of competence, though I spent time there. The full truth about that front may never be known. —
Chapter 50
A slim dark-haired girl walked out on the stage of the open-air theatre at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base, taking off sunglasses and blinking in the white glare of morning sun. The swish of her ice-cream pink dress, displaying silk-sheathed legs, brought glad whistles from the soldiers and sailors who filled every seat in the theatre and most of the folding chairs before the stage. Directly up front sat the governor of Hawaii, the admirals, the generals, and their ladies, and photographers were still blinking feeble blue flashes at them. It was just before eleven o’clock, somewhat early for staged fun, but this first
At the microphone, the girl stood smiling till the good-humored commotion subsided. Then she held up a varnished board lettered in black: APPLAUSE. The audience responded with a heavy round of handclapping.
“Thank you, and hello. I’m Mr. Cleveland’s assistant, Madeline Henry.” A lone piercing wolf whistle sliced down from the topmost row, and laughter swept the stands. She wagged a finger. “And you watch yourself up there! I have two brothers sitting out here, a naval aviator and a submariner, and they’re both big and strong.” This brought more laughter and applause.
The audience was in a lively expectant mood. This debut of a major new radio program at the naval base had been stirring the somnolent territory for days. The island’s good white families, a bored lotus-eating little clique,
