Generalmajor Otto Heidkämper as a Chief of General Staff of Heeresgruppe Mitte in East Prussia, December 1944.
Otto Heidkämper was born in Lauenhagen district of Stadthagen, Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), on March 13, 1901, and entered the Imperial Army as a Fahnenjunker in the 10th Engineer Replacement Battalion on July 9, 1918. After a quick basic training, he was sent to the 10th Engineer Battalion in September 1918 and spent the closing weeks of World War I on the Western Front with the 10th Engineers. After the armistice, he returned to the Fatherland with his unit and was accepted into the Reichswehr, where he served with various engineer units. He completed his officer training at the Engineer School at Munich and was commissioned Leutnant (second lieutenant) on April 1, 1922.
Promotions were slow in the 100,000-man army and Heidkaemper did not reach the rank of captain until 1934. In the meantime, he served almost exclusively in engineer units, including bridging columns. His education was more diverse than his troop duty, however, and included training in mobile operations. He also served a tour as an instructor at the Engineer Officers’ School in Munich. He was adjutant to the higher engineer officer of Army Group 1 in Berlin when Hitler took power on January 30, 1933. Shortly thereafter, Heidkaemper was selected for General Staff training, which he began on October 1, 1933.
General Staff training was the highest the army conducted. Most of Heidkaemper’s classes were held at the Kriegsakademie in Berlin—the famous War Academy, which was reopened on August 1, 1934. Because of the rich tradition and place in Prussian history that the General Staff occupied, the War Academy had a special place in the hearts of German military leaders and (to a lesser extent) the general public as well, and was considered almost sacred ground to the German Officers’ Corps.
Because the chief of the General Staff was responsible for the education of all General Staff officers, the guiding hand behind the resurrected War Academy was that of Colonel General Ludwig Beck, who gave considerable thought to the selection of students, the selection of instructors, the courses of instruction, and all other matters related to the Academy. Unfortunately, despite his intelligence, lofty ideals, and high morals, General Beck was an officer of limited vision. ‘‘Whenever something new had to be done,’’ his staff historian recalled, ‘‘he asked himself what had been done in the past.’’ This statement goes far toward explaining both Beck’s opposition to the panzer branch and the deficiencies of the German General Staff during the Nazi era, for the curriculum of the War Academy stressed tactical proficiency, to the neglect (and virtual exclusion) of the larger, strategic questions. In other words, the course of study was very similar to that Beck underwent when he was a student. Colonel Count Claus von Stauffenberg, one of its graduates in the early Nazi era, later said that too much emphasis was placed on tactical instruction and not enough on technical difficulties (especially logistics) and problems related to the war economy. There were also no required courses in philosophy, the philosophy of warfare, or strategy. Geography, general history (as separated from military history), and economics were only touched on, and even Clausewitz was neglected; in fact, the only nonmilitary subject stressed under Beck’s administration was the study of foreign languages. These facts are peculiar when one considers that Beck himself was no simple soldier who grew up in the army and knew nothing else; he was the son of a professor and was himself broadly and well educated, as well as intelligent and scholarly. He spoke excellent French, understood other languages, and was nationally recognized for his proficiency in higher mathematics, which was one of his hobbies. Ludwig Beck both knew and understood the literature of philosophy and war, and recognized its value and importance; nevertheless, he produced narrowly educated officers. This fact is partially (but not wholly) explained by the fact that the pressure of rearmament and the high demand for General Staff officers forced Beck to shorten the course from four years to three (and later it was reduced to two), followed by the traditional staff ride under Beck’s personal supervision.
Despite its drawbacks, in the 1930s, the War Academy offered the best military training in the world at the tactical and operational levels. In 1935, American Lieutenant Colonel Alfred C. Wedemeyer graduated from the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. At that time, the U.S. and German governments had just concluded a reciprocal exchange agreement that, among other things, allowed two students from each country to attend the other nation’s war academy. Wedemeyer was offered the opportunity to go to Berlin, and he jumped at the chance. In his excellent book (Wedemeyer Reports!), he has left a magnificent account of his thoughts and experiences at the Kriegsakademie and of the friends and acquaintances he made in Germany, including classmates such as Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Jodl and Captain Claus von Stauffenberg. Wedemeyer’s War Academy training is one of the major reasons he became chief of the War Plans Department of the U.S. General Staff and advanced from ‘‘light’’ colonel to four-star general in less than 10 years. (How this great strategic thinker and authority on the German Army ended up commanding U.S. forces in China is a story that, unfortunately, is beyond the scope of this book.) On the other hand, the Germans did not exercise their option of sending students to Kansas and tactfully implied that they did not think too highly of the U.S. General Staff course. Wedemeyer would have agreed with this assessment. ‘‘The German pedagogy and curriculum were, in my judgment, superior to our own,’’ he wrote after the war.
Wedemeyer found that the German War Academy was located in Moabit, an unattractive industrial section of Berlin. Each class began with 100 students, and was divided into five ‘‘study halls’’ of 20 members each. Because the Prussian and other provincial General Staffs had been merged under the Reichsheer, the old instructional methods of Prussian authoritarianism had been discarded in favor of techniques more closely associated with south Germany. Most of the instruction was in the hands of south Germans (who had not been educated in the more rigid Prussian manner) and the encouragement of uninhibited exchanges of views among students and between students and their instructors was certainly more liberal and less dogmatic than would have been the case had the Prussian model been adopted. Here, relationships between junior and senior officers were much closer than outside of the General Staff, and young officers felt free to disagree with older officers who were often two or more grades their superiors in rank, although the proprieties were always observed. This atmosphere, established under Beck (a Hessian), was continued under his successor, Franz Halder, who was a Bavarian. Even criticism of National Socialism was permitted.
Unfortunately for Germany, the General Staff course, which flourished in this climate of mutual confidence, consisted of only two parts: the first dealt with command through the regimental level, and the second with command and staff problems at the divisional level and above. During the first year, the students received six hours of lecture each week on tactics, plus four on military history, one in engineering, one on panzer forces, and another on air forces. The rest of the students’ time was taken up by group study hall sessions, homework, and individual study. The second year the course remained the same, except an hours’ lecture on logistics was added. Finally, in the third year, the student received an entire day’s worth of lectures on tactics, plus another six hours each week. He also attended four hours of lectures on military history, plus an hour on logistics and another hour on air forces. Each winter, the officers underwent a block of special tactical instruction (called the ‘‘winter study’’) and each summer he was assigned to a combat arms branch other than his own, to broaden his base of experience. The student was also expected to pursue a program of study and reading at home. During the third year of his General Staff course, the officer-student was assigned to a higher staff. Shortly before the outbreak of the war, the General Staff course was shortened to two years, because of the desperate need for General Staff officers. By the second half of 1944, the War Academy had been moved from Berlin to Hirschberg, in the Sudeten Mountains of Silesia, to escape Allied bombers, and the course of study was only a few months long.
Largely because of this course, German mastery of tactical and operational arts on the battlefields of World War II is a generally accepted fact. Had there been a fourth year, dealing with strategy, international relations, geopolitical questions, and the problems of industrial and economic warfare and related issues—or perhaps less tactics and more of these other things in the first three years—events might have worked out much differently than they did—assuming, of course, that Hitler let his generals practice the strategic art, which is a very big assumption indeed.
Captain Heidkämper graduated from the War Academy on January 8, 1937, and for the next eight years wore the red trouser stripes of a General Staff officer. His first postgraduate assignment was with the General Staff of the Army at Zossen, but he was soon named commander of the 3rd Company, 19th Engineer Battalion at Holzminden (1937–38), no doubt because he lacked experience in commanding troops. With this deficiency remedied, he was assigned to the General Staff of the 9th Army Service Depot. Then, as the Third Reich neared a showdown with France, Britain, and Czechoslovakia over the Sudetenland, Heidkaemper was sent to the Reich’s western frontier and served on the General Staffs of Fortress Command Aachen, Corps Staff Eifel, and the Eifel Frontier Guard Command. He was promoted to major on August 1, 1938, and had successfully completed his apprenticeship. On May 1, 1939, Heidkaemper was given his own staff when he was named Ia (chief of operations) of the 2nd Light Division, then headquartered at Gera, Thuringia, in Wehrkreis IX. The division included the 66th Panzer Battalion, the 6th and 7th Mechanized Cavalry (Kavallerie-Schuetzen) Regiments, the 7th Reconnaissance Regiment, the 78th Artillery Regiment, the 58th Engineer Battalion, and the 42nd Antitank Battalion. The divisional commander was Lieutenant General Georg Stumme, an amiable cavalry officer.
When World War II began on September 1, 1939, the 66th Panzer Battalion was equipped only with very poor Panzer Mark I (PzKw I) and Panzer Mark II light tanks. The rest of the division, however, was much better equipped. As part of the main German strike force—General of Artillery Walter von Reichenau’s 10th Army—the 2nd Light fought its way through the Polish frontier defenses, helped overrun the Warta district, and pushed all the way to the suburbs of Warsaw, before doubling back to help smash the better part of the Polish Army in the Radom encirclement. It then pushed on to the Vistula and took part in the Siege of Warsaw, which ended with the Polish capitulation on September 27.
Heidkaemper returned to Germany with his unit and helped Stumme convert it into a panzer unit during the winter of 1939–40. During the French campaign of 1940, he supervised the administration, supply, and logistics of the 7th Panzer, while Rommel led it in combat. The two very different men made an effective team—as long as they were separated and did not have to talk to each other very often.
During the campaign, the 7th Panzer’s adjacent unit, the SS Panzer Grenadier Division ‘‘Totenkopf,’’ developed serious supply problems because of bad staff work. (Poor staff work and a severe shortage of
qualified staff officers in general and General Staff officers in particular plagued the Waffen-SS throughout its existence.) The ‘‘Death’s Head’’ division had only one really qualified staff officer, SS Colonel Baron Cassius von Montigny. He had served in the U-Boat branch in World War I and had earned the Iron Cross, 1st Class. After fighting as part of the Freikorps in 1919 and 1920, he joined the police and served until 1935, when he joined the army. Eventually he served on the staffs of the 31st and 102nd Infantry Regiments. He was forced to resign from the service by the war minister, Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg, because of his pro-Nazi political activities. Montigny wrote to Heinrich Himmler about his perceived mistreatment and Himmler—who was always on the lookout for qualified staff officers—invited him to join the SS as a lieutenant colonel. After entering the SS on April 1, 1938, as an instructor at the SS Junker School at Bad Toelz, he became the Ia of the SS ‘‘Death’s Head’’ Division in October 1939.
Montigny was already overworked when the French campaign began and, within two weeks of the beginning of the invasion, he collapsed because of stress and nervous exhaustion. The fact that Totenkopf’s commander, SS Lieutenant General Theodor Eicke, was in no way qualified for his post further exacerbated an already difficult situation. Eicke had contributed to Montigny’s collapse by constantly berating him and screaming at him. Rommel offered to help his floundering neighbor, in part because, if Eicke’s failed to keep up, Rommel’s own flank would be exposed. After Eicke accepted the offer, the future Desert Fox handed the problem to Heidkaemper and Joachim von Metzsch, the Ib, who handled it flawlessly. They even ran SS convoys over 7th Panzer’s main supply route without any particular difficulties.
Rommel and Heidkaemper generally worked well together in Belgium and France because the general directed the battle from the front or from his command post, while the major handled secondary operations, coordination, supply and logistical issues, and myriad other staff problems from the main headquarters. There was friction between the two, however, and it was sometimes serious. During the drive to the English Channel, for example, Rommel was in his typical position at the spearhead of the division, advancing on Cambrai, and Heidkaemper had no idea where he was or what he was up to. Nervous and annoyed, the young Ia wrote a memorandum on the staff difficulties caused by Rommel’s methods of command and forwarded it to the future Desert Fox, who reacted with fury. He blamed poor staff work and a lack of initiative in the rear areas for the supply difficulties experienced by the 25th Panzer Regiment in the drive to the sea—not his own bold leadership style. He also denounced his chief of operations for failing to anticipate his requirements.
It is difficult not to sympathize with Heidkaemper—and not with Rommel—in this controversy. Heidkaemper, after all, was not clairvoyant and could hardly be blamed for being nervous. In my opinion, Rommel should have kept him better informed. Instead, he left young Heidkaemper (a very junior officer) with great responsibility but without commensurate authority. Moreover, Rommel’s very fair and even tempered corps commander—General of Panzer Troops Hermann Hoth—generally agreed with Heidkaemper, who had taken out a professional insurance policy by forwarding a copy of his memo to Hoth. Sacking the young General Staff officer—a typical Rommel response—was therefore out of the question. Given this development, the impetuous division commander had little choice but to meet with his Ia and make peace with him, which is exactly what he did. This incident, however, was not forgotten.
The Rommel-Heidkaemper team clearly worked best when one or the other was not present. During the fighting phases of the French campaign, this was no problem. When the division was on occupation duty in southwestern France, however, and Rommel was not busy in the combat zone, their relationship became increasingly strained. (Rommel was often difficult for his subordinates to deal with—especially General Staff officers, whom he neither fully trusted nor appreciated. This gradually changed over time. Later, Rommel grew to both rely on and respect his General Staff officers, but this was certainly not the case in 1940.) In any case, by mutual consent, Otto Heidkaemper transferred to the 4th Panzer Division on November 15, 1940, 15 days after his promotion to lieutenant colonel was confirmed by OKH.
As Ia of the 4th Panzer, Heidkaemper’s transfer did not represent a promotion. His new division, however, had just been sent back to Germany, so that was probably a plus. He also got along well with his new commander, Major General Baron Willibald von Langermann und Erlenkamp. Heidkaemper was soon deeply involved in the reorganization of the division, much of which was used to form the 14th Panzer Division. In May 1941, the 4th Panzer was sent to East Prussia. It invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.
The 4th was an outstanding unit even by German Army standards. At the end of the war, it would be the most heavily decorated of all the Wehrmacht divisions. In 1941, it fought at Minsk, Gomel, Bryansk, Vyasma, and several other bitterly contested battles on the road to Moscow. By mid-November 1941, it had only 50 tanks left. (It had about 180 when the invasion began.) It nevertheless attempted to encircle the strategic city of Tula (southeast of Moscow) but failed, and suffered heavy losses in the process. On December 6, 1941, Stalin launched his winter offensive, and the 4th Panzer Division was heavily engaged in the exceptionally bitter fighting. Well led by Langermann and Major General Dietrich von Saucken, who replaced Langermann on December 24, the unit repulsed every attack. Saucken was seriously wounded on January 2, 1942, and was replaced by the equally capable Major General Heinrich Eberbach. The 4th remained with Army Group Center until 1944.
After the Soviet attempt to smash the army group was thwarted, Eberbach went on leave for a month, beginning on March 2, 1942. Instead of following the normal practice of getting a temporary divisional commander or leaving the senior regimental commander in charge, Eberbach turned the command of the division over to Heidkaemper. This was a tremendous vote of confidence in the young officer—lieutenant colonels almost never served as divisional commanders, even on a temporary basis. He held the post until Eberbach returned in early April; then he went on leave himself. When he returned to duty on May 13, 1942, he was given another career advancement: he was named chief of staff of the XXIV Panzer Corps. His commander was his old friend, Baron Willibald von Langermann und Erlenkamp. Heidkaemper was promoted to colonel on June 1, 1942.
The next campaign was Otto Heidkaemper’s most difficult and ended in the Battle of Stalingrad. Although the XXIV Panzer was not encircled in the city, it suffered heavy losses in the drive on the Volga and faced the full fury of the Soviet offensive. This is reflected in the loss of commanders: Langermann (killed in action, October 3, 1942); General of Artillery Martin Wandel (missing in action, January 14, 1943); Lieutenant General Arno Jahr (killed in action, January 20, 1943); and Lieutenant General Karl Eibl (assumed command on January 20 and killed in action near the Don River the next day). Some Italian soldiers mistook his command car for a Russian vehicle and blew it up with hand grenades. Although only a colonel, Otto Heidkaemper assumed command of what was left of the corps. OKH pulled the battered headquarters out of the line to reorganize and left Heidkaemper in charge until February 12, 1943, when General of Panzer Troops Walter Nehring arrived to supersede him. In recognition for his services, Heidkaemper was decorated with the Knight’s Cross on February 8.
Shortly after Nehring arrived, Heidkaemper went on an extended leave. When he returned to the Eastern Front on May 5, 1943, he was promoted to major general (effective May 1) and was named chief of staff, 3rd Panzer Army. His commander was now Colonel General Georg-Hans Reinhardt.
As was the case throughout the war, Heidkaemper and his commander made an extremely effective team. Third Panzer Army won several defensive victories in 1943 but, in June 1944, along with Army Group Center, it fell victim to one of the Fuehrer’s ‘‘not one step back’’ orders. At Vitebsk, the entire LIII Corps was sacrificed on the altar of Hitler’s inflexible strategy. By August, only two of Reinhardt’s nine divisions remained more or less intact, although 3rd Panzer had come out better than the 4th or 9th Armies. Hitler blamed the army group commander, Field Marshal Ernst Busch, for this defeat and sacked him on June 28. He was replaced by Field Marshal Walter Model. In mid-August 1944, however, with the Western Front on the verge of collapse, Hitler learned that the commander-in-chief of OB West and Army Group B, Field Marshal Guenther von Kluge, had known about the conspiracy to assassinate him and had given it cautious support. By now seeing treason in every event, the paranoid dictator replaced Kluge with Walter Model. As the senior army commander in Army Group Center, Reinhardt succeeded Model on August 16, 1944. As was common practice in the German Wehrmacht, Model carried his chief of staff, Lieutenant General Hans Krebs, with him to Army Group B. Reinhardt, in turn, named Heidkaemper chief of staff of the army group. Heidkaemper helped Colonel General Edhard Raus, the new commander of the 3rd Panzer Army, transition into his new job for two weeks and then joined Reinhardt in Poland on September 1.
General Reinhardt directed the retreat across eastern Poland and into East Prussia. In January 1945, in another desperate tactical situation, Hitler issued a typically irrational order and instructed the 4th Army
to hold at all costs. Reinhardt appealed to him to allow a retreat, but the dictator refused. Reinhardt authorized a retreat anyway. As a result, both Reinhardt and General of Infantry Friedrich Hossbach, the commander of the 4th Army, were relieved of their commands. (Reinhardt would have had to be replaced in any case; he had been hit in the head by a Soviet bullet on January 25 and only barely survived. He would be in the hospital for months. News of his wound had not yet reached Fuehrer Headquarters when he was relieved.)
Reinhardt was succeeded by Colonel General Ferdinand Schoerner, a brutal Nazi. As soon as he arrived at headquarters, he sacked Otto Heidkaemper, because of his lack of enthusiasm for National Socialism and because of his involvement in Reinhardt’s unauthorized retreat.
Heidkaemper remained unemployed until April 15, 1945, when he assumed command of a rear-area sector. On April 27, he was given command of the recently activated 464th Infantry Division, which was made up of former members of the Replacement Army—mostly old men and boys. It had been given a defensive sector on the Eastern Front near Dresden. After Hitler committed suicide on April 30, Heidkaemper and much of his command disengaged from the Russians and headed west, where they surrendered to the Americans. Heidkaemper was only held for about two weeks, from May 9 to 24, when he was released from prison and allowed to go home.
Heidkaemper was an excellent officer and a fairly typical example of the level of officer produced by the German General Staff during World War II. He settled in Bueckeburg, West Germany, and wrote a book about the Battle of Vitebsk. He died in Bueckeburg on February 16, 1969.
Source :
"Rommel's Lieutenants: The Men Who Served the Desert Fox" by Samuel W. Mitcham
https://www.alexautographs.com/auction-lot/otto-heidkamper_08440B5A25
