Thinking Beyond Dead Germans by Capt Zachary Schwartz

IDEAS & ISSUES (STRATEGY & POLICY) Thinking Beyond Dead Germans Bias and our warped orientation on the Russian adversary by Capt Zachary Schwartz ecent articles in the Marine Corps Gazette have shed re- >Capt Schwartz is the Weapons Company Commander, 3/7 Mar. He is also a regu- newed light on the influence lar contributor to and co-founder of the Connecting File, an online newsletter for of German Military history, infantry company commanders. Rparticularly the German military of World War II, on the Marine Corps and the Maneuver Warfare Movement. mistakes made by the authors, omit- pragmatically propped up and pro- This influence is undeniable and has ted information that would have been moted the narrative of the nobility and been critical to the development of our embarrassing and placed the blame strength of German arms against the warfighting doctrine; however, a series for fiascos on third parties.”2 You can Communist threat.5 American military of biases are inherent in our embrace of probably go to your unit library right leaders began to accept and study the the German military experience. These now and find well-worn editions of Gen often-slanted accounts of SS and Heer biases deeply effect our understanding Heinz Guderian’s Panzer Leader, Gen officers. This uncomfortable acceptance of World War II Germany’s most hated Friedrich von Mellenthin Panzer Battles, of Nazi commanders continues to this adversary: Russia. To fully understand and the achingly titled Lost Victories day. In 2019, the Department of De- and execute maneuver warfare, we must by Field Marshal Erich Von Manstein. fense Facebook page posted a stylized be able to ferret out the prejudices af- These memoirs are shot through with a photo of SS tank commander Joachim fecting our own orientations. To this running theme: “The German Soldier Peiper in commemoration of the 75th day, a warped understanding of the Rus- ... has not been beaten on his merits Anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. sian way of war afflicts many Marines. but has simply been crushed by over- The post was instantly decried by civil- The preconceptions driving this mis- ians and military members alike, par- understanding have been a part of the ticularly since Peiper was an avowed Maneuver Warfare Movement since its ... a series of biases are racist “who ordered the massacre of 84 inception and can be traced back to the U.S. prisoners of war” in what became Marine Corps’ embrace of World War II inherent in our embrace known as the Malmedy Massacre.6 German military history. These prefer- of the German military The founders of the Maneuver War- ences must be understood and guarded fare Movement were a product of their against if the Marine Corps is to prevail experience. times and hardly immune to the pitfalls against our current adversaries. of Nazi fetishization. Walk around any unit in the Ma- German military history appealed rine Corps today and ask about the deeply, and with good reason, to the Soviet contribution to World War II. whelming masses of material.”3 This pioneers of maneuver warfare. “For a The general responses you receive will is not to mention the undercurrent of Marine Corps that would rarely enjoy probably average out to “human wave often unrepentant Nazism and racial a preponderance of forces and thus the attacks, vast superiority in people and animus commonly found in these ac- ability to control wide swathes of ter- material, and moronic lack of ingenuity counts, to include the myth of the Heer rain,”7 the striking examples of Ger- or tactics.”1 This opinion often traces as a wholly professional and blameless man armored spearheads encircling its roots to Hollywood dramas such as army that was “untouched by ... the and liquidating Soviet armies provided Enemy at the Gates and Cross of Iron. It crimes of the regime.”4 exciting and useful intellectual fodder. is further solidified by the deep-rooted In the post-World War II years, with Col John Boyd, USAF, often seen as tradition of Marines reading the often the rapid souring of international rela- the intellectual godfather of maneuver “self-serving accounts” of German com- tions that commenced the Cold War, warfare, was particularly interested in manders who typically “minimized the United States conveniently and the Blitzkrieg and the “glue” of finger- WE60 www.mca-marines.org/gazette Marine Corps Gazette • March 2021 spitzengefühl (“fingertip feeling”).8 Boyd would defeat Nazi Germany (regimen- was also heavily influenced by the ac- tal and battalion commanders at the counts of World War II German com- time), but it also allowed the creation of manders. He saw Manstein’s February operational art, doctrine for combined 1943 “Donetz counterstroke” as a su- arms, and deep battle, or the “combined perb example of “unhinging an enemy” operations of tanks, artillery, aircraft, and often referenced Lost Victories. It is motorized infantry, and airborne troops, not difficult to imagine an unconscious striking rapidly and deeply into ene- assumption of Manstein’s own biases my territory and defenses.”16 The Red by Boyd, especially since Boyd argued Army developed and field tested its first that “historically ... the Russians’ only mechanized corps and accompanying real strength in war came from a large doctrine “three years before Germany population that was used as cannon created its first panzer divisions.”17 This fodder.”9 progressive blossoming would enable As Boyd lifted up and analyzed the the young corps commander Georgy German military experience, so did his Zhukov (eventual Marshal of the Soviet associates. From Mr. Bill Lind to Col Union and Chief of the General Staff of Mike Wyly, the proponents of maneu- the Red Army) to utilize combined arms ver warfare turned to the World War II and rapid mechanized envelopment to German army for examples to emulate The FM 100-2 series of field manuals were encircle and soundly defeat Japanese the standard references for opposing forces and study. In the face of “hot” conflict in training exercises, wargames and PME forces at Kalkhin-Gol in Mongolia in 18 against the highly mechanized hordes throughout the 1980s. 1939. of the Red Army, articles referencing Just as the Soviet investment in mili- the experiences of Guderian, Rommel, tary education and reform provides a Mellenthin, and Manstein became Despite the commonly accepted case study in victory, Joseph Stalin’s frequent features in the Marine Corps historiography delivered by post-World purge of the Red Army in the late 1930s Gazette through the Cold War era.10 War II German sources, Russian mili- provides a stark example of the caustic Gradually, the Soviet army became a tary history has much to offer the price of mistrust, yes-men, and insti- faceless tackling dummy, synonymous dedicated maneuverist in the realm of tutional paranoia. From 1937 through with attrition, intellectual torpor, and a warfighting education. Furthermore, 1939, “2 heads of the Red Air Force, paralyzing obsession with “detailed con- this history can help us orient on our 15 admirals ... 3 of the 5 marshals of trol by a centralized decision-making modern peer adversary: the Russian the Soviet Union ... 136 of 139 division node.”11 Federation. Russian military history commanders ... and 50 percent of all An incestuous amplifier to this grow- spans over 1,000 years but even just regimental commanders were ... dis- ing German “echo chamber” was the focusing on the Soviet era yields valu- graced ... imprisoned or executed,” as lack of Russian source material. During able insights. Emerging from the Rus- Stalin sought to remove any potential the Cold War, little historical material sian Civil War, the Red Army entered rivals to his power.19 Underperform- on World War II was allowed to seep a period of professionalization and aca- ing but docile officers along with ex- through the Iron Curtain to Western demic rigor championed by officers such tremely junior commanders filled the sources. The accounts that did were as Defence Minister Mikhail V. Frunze resulting vacuum across the Red Army. often hagiographic biographies of Red and Chief of the General Staff Mikhail Zhukov’s victory at Khalkhin-Gol and Army commanders who “covered the Tukhachevsky. In the early 1920s and the physical distance of his command Soviet Army with glory by their un- 1930s, the Red Army was “open to inno- from Moscow preserved him to fight precedented valour in delivering Europe vative thinking about military affairs” another day. With its chain of com- from the brown plague of Nazism.”12 with “lively debates ... about military mand shaken to the core, the once pro- These sources were hobbled by Soviet strategy, tactics, and technology”14 tak- gressive Red Army stagnated. The 1939 censorship as well as Marxist-Leninist ing place between leaders on junior and Russo-Finnish War proved this point, propagandizing and “up to 60 percent senior levels. with undertrained and unimaginative of the war’s [Eastern Front] content Because of its role in defending the commanders smashing their unpre- remained largely conjecture” until as Union of Soviet Socialist Republics pared and unmotivated troops against late as 1995, when the Russian Minis- (USSR), the army “was allowed to the defenses of Finland’s Mannerheim try of Defense archives were gradually maintain an unusually creative and Line in a bloody embarrassment for the opened.13 With only the accounts of the dynamic environment in a Soviet sys- USSR. The Nazi invasion of the Soviet defeated to study, the pioneers of ma- tem in which independent thinking was Union in 1941 and the resulting war neuver warfare forged ahead while their increasingly frowned upon.”15 This en- of annihilation would be the catalyst collective orientation on the Russian vironment not only began to shape the for transforming the humiliated and adversary slipped farther from reality.

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