Erich von Manstein Hitler's Master Strategist by Benoît Lemay

Author:Benoît Lemay [Lemay, Benoît]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-01-14T16:00:00+00:00

XI

MANSTEIN, THE ELEVENTH

ARMY IN THE CRIMEA, AND THE

FINAL SOLUTION

At his trial held in Hamburg in 1949, Manstein was declared not guilty in relation to the issue of the extermination of the Jews. However, his order from November 20, 1941 was enough evidence to prove his guilt. ³¹⁰ In addition, the arguments that he presented in his defense were grossly erroneous. For example, he declared that he knew practically nothing, during the course of the war, of the Einsatzgruppen, apart from the fact that they had a political mission that concerned, among other things, surveillance of the population in the occupied territories. Such an assertion was hardly different from his testimony at Nuremberg, three years earlier, on the same subject: “Concerning the duties of the Einsatzgruppen, I only knew that they were assigned to prepare the political administration, which is to say through a political surveillance of the population of the occupied territories of the East which they were accomplishing according to Himmler’s special instructions and under his leadership. […] This organization of Einsatzgruppen, such as it appears clearly to me today, was not in the very least clear during this period. Its missions even less so.”

Concerning the intention and order to exterminate the Jews and other elements of the population, Manstein claimed never to have heard any discussion of this, responding quite briefly: “No, I did not know about it.” To the question whether he had ever been advised of the killings of Jews, he responded in a way that was just as categorical: “I received absolutely no news relative to the execution of the Jews. I only heard talk of rumors.” When asked again if he was claiming before the tribunal that he did not know that one of the most important missions of the Einsatzgruppen was to exterminate the political commissars and the Jews, he remained consistent with his previous responses: “No, I did not know about it.” ³¹¹

Yet, Manstein was incapable of not knowing what was occurring behind the front, and even less so behind the army’s operational zone which fell directly under his command. It is entirely impossible that he was unaware of the Einsatzgruppen activities. According to the March 26, 1941 agreement, reached between Lieutenant General Wagner and SS-Gruppenführer Heydrich, the Einsatzgruppen were to be placed under the control of the armies concerning their movement and resupply, and were moreover required to inform the army commanders of their operations on a regular basis. Consequently, Manstein and all the other army commanders on the Eastern Front must have logically been informed of the activities of the Einsatzgruppen. In this respect, SSObergruppenführer Eric von dem Bach-Zelewski asserted at Nuremberg that all the generals of the Eastern Front were fully aware of the actual job of the Einsatzgruppen. ³¹²

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