Nickname: none
Date of Birth: November 24, 1887 in Berlin (German Empire)
Date of Death: June 9, 1973 in Irschenhausen, Bavaria (West Germany)
Religion: Protestant
Parents: Eduard von Lewinski (1829-1906, General der Artillerie) and Helene von Sperling (1847-1910)
Siblings: Nine older siblings, including Agnes Auguste Louise Marie von Lewinski (born 1860), Staats August Friedrich Eduard von Lewinski (1863-1906), August Alfred Friedrich von Lewinski (1866-1957), Philippine von Lewinski (1869-1958), Oscar Eugen Alfred Edwin von Lewinski (1873-1913); exact full list of names not fully documented, as he was the tenth child
Spouse: Jutta Sibylle von Loesch (1896-1966, married June 10, 1920)
Children: Gisela von Manstein (born 1921), Gero Erich Sylvester von Manstein (born December 31, 1922; died October 29, 1942, on the Eastern Front as a Leutnant), Rudiger von Manstein (born 1929)
Promotions:
Fahnrich (March 6, 1906)
Leutnant (January 27, 1907; Patent June 14, 1905)
Oberleutnant (June 19, 1912)
Hauptmann (July 24, 1915)
Major (1927; Rangdienstalter February 1, 1927)
Oberstleutnant (April 1, 1931)
Oberst (December 1, 1933)
Generalmajor (October 1, 1936)
Generalleutnant (April 1, 1939)
General der Infanterie (June 1, 1940)
Generaloberst (March 7, 1942)
Generalfeldmarschall (July 1, 1942)
Career:
1906-1914: Service in 3. Garde-Regiment zu Fuss, including as Bataillonsadjutant and Kriegsakademie training
1914-1918: World War I service, including adjutant roles, staff positions, wounded in November 1914
1919-1932: Reichswehr staff roles, including Gruppenkommando 2, 5. Infanterie-Regiment, 2. and 4. Division, Infanteriefuhrer IV, Reichswehrministerium T1
1932-1934: Kommandeur II. (Jager) Bataillon, 4. Infanterie-Regiment
1934-1935: Chef des Stabes, 3. Division
1935-1936: Leiter Operations-Abteilung, Generalstab des Heeres
1936-1938: Oberquartiermeister I, Generalstab des Heeres
1938-1939: Kommandeur 18. Infanterie-Division
1939: Chef des Generalstabes Heeresgruppe Sud (Poland), then Heeresgruppe A (planning Fall Gelb)
1940: Kommandierender General XXXVIII. Armeekorps (France)
1941: Kommandierender General LVI. Armeekorps (mot.) (Barbarossa)
1941-1942: Oberbefehlshaber 11. Armee (Crimea, Sevastopol)
1942-1944: Oberbefehlshaber Heeresgruppe Don/Sud
1944-1945: Retired
1949-1953: Imprisoned after war crimes trial
1950s: Advisor to Bundeswehr
Awards and Decorations:
Eisernes Kreuz (1914) 2. Klasse
Eisernes Kreuz (1914) 1. Klasse
Ritterkreuz des Koniglichen Hausordens von Hohenzollern mit Schwertern
Ritterkreuz, Erste Klasse des Friedrich-Ordens mit Schwertern
Hanseatenkreuz (Hamburg)
Verwundetenabzeichen (1918) in Schwarz
Ehrenkreuz des Weltkrieges 1914/1918
Wehrmacht-Dienstauszeichnung 4. bis 1. Klasse
Spange zum Eisernen Kreuz (1939) 2. Klasse (September 16, 1939)
Spange zum Eisernen Kreuz (1939) 1. Klasse (September 21, 1939)
Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes (July 19, 1940) als General der Infanterie und Kommandierender General XXXVIII. Armeekorps. This award recognized his significant contributions to the german successes in the west, particularly in the battles along the somme, seine, and loire rivers. as chief of staff for heeresgruppe a, manstein had played a pivotal role in planning the sickle cut strategy that facilitated the rapid defeat of allied forces, though hitler claimed credit for the plan. during the actual operations, his corps achieved the first breakthrough east of amiens and was the first unit to reach and cross the seine river, demonstrating exceptional leadership in the foremost lines and contributing to the overall outstanding military success of the invasion.
Ordinul Mihai Viteazul Clasa a 3-a (November 25, 1941 als General der Infanterie und Kommandeur 11. Armee)
Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub #209 (March 14, 1943) als Generalfeldmarschall und Oberbefehlshaber Heeresgruppe Sud). This award was for his masterful execution of the backhand blow counteroffensive during the third battle of kharkov in february-march 1943. following the disaster at stalingrad, soviet forces had advanced rapidly, creating a dangerous gap in the german lines. manstein reorganized his depleted forces, allowed the soviets to overextend their supply lines, and then launched a decisive counterattack on february 20. his troops recaptured kharkov on march 14 after intense street fighting, destroyed three soviet armies, forced three others to retreat, and stabilized the southern front. the operation inflicted heavy losses on the soviets, including over 23,000 killed and 615 tanks captured by early march, preventing the collapse of the eastern front and regaining substantial territory. this feat is often referred to as mansteins miracle.
Krimschild in Gold (November 24, 1943 als Generalfeldmarschall)
Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub und Schwertern #59 (March 30, 1944) als Generalfeldmarschall und Oberbefehlshaber Heeresgruppe Sud. This award acknowledged his skilled command during the prolonged defensive operations and retreats in ukraine from july to december 1943, amid overwhelming soviet pressure. facing multiple soviet offensives, manstein orchestrated withdrawals to the dnieper line, authorized by hitler on september 15, 1943, and conducted counterattacks near bohodukhiv and okhtyrka in august. despite eventual encirclements like the kamenets-podolsky pocket and heavy losses, his leadership sustained army group south, implementing scorched-earth tactics in a 20-30 kilometer zone to deny resources to the enemy. the award came ironically on the same day hitler relieved him of command due to strategic disagreements, highlighting mansteins ability to maintain cohesion against superior forces.
Verwundetenabzeichen (1939) in Gold
Funfmalige Nennung im Wehrmachtbericht (October 11, 1941; October 12, 1941; October 31, 1941; May 19, 1942; May 20, 1942; July 2, 1942; March 20, 1943; August 4, 1943)
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Erich von Manstein was born Fritz Erich Georg Eduard von Lewinski on 24 November 1887 in Berlin, the tenth child of Prussian artillery general Eduard von Lewinski and his wife Helene von Sperling. His family had deep roots in the Prussian nobility, with his father descending from a line that included Polish and Kashubian ancestry, bearing the Brochwicz coat of arms. Due to his biological aunt and uncle, Hedwig and Georg von Manstein, being childless, he was adopted at birth and took their surname, growing up in a household steeped in military tradition. His adoptive grandfather, Albrecht Gustav von Manstein, had commanded a corps during the Franco-Prussian War, while his maternal grandfather, Oskar von Sperling, served as chief of staff in the First Army. Notably, his uncle was Paul von Hindenburg, who later became a field marshal and President of Germany. With sixteen relatives on each parental side serving as officers, many achieving general rank, Manstein's early environment was profoundly shaped by the Prussian military ethos. He attended the Imperial Lyzeum in Strasbourg from 1894 to 1899, followed by the cadet corps in Plön and Groß-Lichterfelde, where he excelled in academics and leadership. Commissioned as an ensign in the Third Foot Guards Regiment in March 1906, he was promoted to lieutenant in January 1907 and began training at the Prussian War Academy in October 1913, completing only the first year before the outbreak of World War I.
World War I saw Manstein serving on both the Western and Eastern Fronts, beginning as a lieutenant in the 2nd Guard Reserve Infantry Regiment during the invasion of Belgium, where he participated in the capture of Namur in August 1914. Transferred to East Prussia in September, he fought in the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes under Hindenburg's Eighth Army and later with the Ninth Army advancing toward Warsaw. On 16 November 1914, during a retreat, he sustained severe wounds from a bullet that struck his left shoulder, knee, and sciatic nerve, requiring six months of recovery in hospitals in Beuthen and Wiesbaden. Returning to duty in June 1915 as an assistant general staff officer with the 10th Army under Max von Gallwitz, he was promoted to captain and gained extensive experience in offensives across Poland, Lithuania, Montenegro, and Albania. By early 1916, he was stationed near Verdun, later serving as a staff supply officer under Fritz von Below at the Somme, witnessing the harsh winter withdrawals to the Hindenburg Line in 1916-1917. In October 1917, he became chief of staff for the 4th Cavalry Division in Riga, and following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918, he transferred to the 213th Infantry Division near Reims, ending the war as a captain without full general staff training, having earned decorations for bravery including the Iron Cross First and Second Class.
The interwar period marked a time of personal and professional development for Manstein. In 1920, he married Jutta Sibylle von Loesch, the daughter of a Silesian landowner, after a brief courtship of three days; the couple had three children—a daughter Gisela born in 1921, and sons Gero born in 1922, who would later die as a lieutenant on the Eastern Front in 1942, and Rüdiger born in 1929. Remaining in the military after the war, he volunteered for a staff position in Breslau until 1919 and contributed to restructuring the Imperial Army into the Reichswehr, which was capped at 100,000 men under the Treaty of Versailles; he was among the 4,000 officers retained. Serving as company commander in the 5th Prussian Infantry Regiment from 1921, he held staff roles in Wehrkreiskommando II and IV, teaching military history and tactics until 1927. Promoted to major on 1 February 1927, he joined the General Staff at the Ministry of the Reichswehr in Berlin, working on mobilization plans and visiting foreign militaries. Advanced to lieutenant colonel, he commanded a light infantry battalion in the 4th Infantry Regiment until 1934. Following the Nazi rise to power in 1933 and the initiation of rearmament in defiance of Versailles, he became chief of staff for the 3rd Division under Erwin von Witzleben in February 1934. By 1 July 1935, he led the Operations Branch of the Army General Staff at the OKH, influencing plans like Fall Rot for defense against France and advocating for Sturmgeschütze assault guns, which became vital in World War II. Promoted to Generalleutnant on 4 February 1938, he commanded the 18th Infantry Division in Liegnitz but was passed over for Chief of the Army General Staff in favor of Franz Halder, breeding resentment. On 20 April 1939, he delivered a speech at Hitler's 50th birthday, praising the leader while warning of potential encirclement by hostile powers.
At the onset of World War II, Manstein was appointed Chief of Staff to Gerd von Rundstedt's Army Group South on 18 August 1939 for the invasion of Poland, known as Fall Weiß. He devised a plan concentrating armored forces in the 10th Army for a breakthrough and encirclement west of the Vistula, supported by flanking armies, leading to major victories such as the encirclements at Radom from 8 to 14 September and the Battle of the Bzura from 8 to 19 September, resulting in the defeat of nine Polish divisions and Poland's surrender by 6 October. Although he attended a conference on 22 August where Hitler outlined the destruction of Poland as a nation, Manstein later claimed ignorance of extermination policies, despite receiving reports on Einsatzgruppen activities. For the Western campaign, Fall Gelb in May 1940, as Rundstedt's chief of staff for Army Group A, he proposed the innovative Sichelschnitt plan, channeling forces through the Ardennes to sever Allied troops in Belgium; refined with input from Heinz Guderian, it was initially rejected by Halder but adopted by Hitler on 17 February after a document leak. Manstein's XXXVIII Army Corps under Günther von Kluge's 4th Army achieved a breakthrough at Amiens and was the first to cross the Seine, earning him promotion to general and the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 19 July 1940. He also pushed for Operation Sea Lion, the planned invasion of Britain, which was abandoned after the Luftwaffe's defeat in the Battle of Britain by October 1940.
Manstein's role expanded during Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union starting in June 1941, where he commanded the LVI Panzer Corps as part of Erich Hoepner's Fourth Panzer Army in Army Group North. His forces advanced rapidly to the Daugava River in just 100 hours, repelling counterattacks and encircling Soviet units near Luga, though a July offensive isolated his 8th Panzer Division, stalling momentum. In September 1941, following the death of Eugen Ritter von Schobert, he assumed command of the 11th Army for the conquest of Crimea, securing the Perekop Isthmus by November, capturing Simferopol on 1 November, and overrunning most of the peninsula except Sevastopol by 16 November, with around 300,000 Soviets evacuated. Initial assaults on Sevastopol faltered, leading to a siege; the Battle of the Kerch Peninsula in May 1942, bolstered by air support, culminated in Kerch's capture on 16 May and 170,000 prisoners taken. Promoted to field marshal on 1 July 1942 after a massive June artillery barrage and amphibious assault across Severnaya Bay allowed entry into Sevastopol on 1 July, his operations involved cooperation with Romanian forces under Ion Antonescu. However, in Crimea, he provided logistical support to Einsatzgruppe D, facilitating massacres of Jews and others, ignoring appeals to intervene, which later formed the basis of war crimes charges. Transferred to Leningrad in August 1942, he planned Operation Nordlicht to sever supply lines across Lake Ladoga but instead countered the Soviet Sinyavin Offensive from September to October, holding positions without assaulting the city itself.
In December 1942, amid the Battle of Stalingrad, Manstein took command of the newly formed Army Group Don to lead Operation Winter Storm, a relief effort starting on 12 December with three Panzer divisions advancing 48 kilometers by 20 December before being halted by blizzards and Soviet resistance. The tragic loss of his son Gero on 29 October 1942 added personal grief. He repeatedly urged Hitler to permit a breakout of the encircled Sixth Army on 18 December and later to authorize surrender on 24 January 1943, but these pleas were rejected, leading to the army's capitulation on 31 January with over 200,000 fatalities; historians attribute the disaster partly to his unheeded advice and Hermann Göring's failed air supply promises. Facing Soviet offensives like Operation Saturn threatening Rostov, his forces held key positions. By February 1943, redesignated as Army Group South, he executed the "backhand blow" counteroffensive at Kharkov from 20 February, reclaiming territory, annihilating three Soviet armies, and retaking Kharkov on 14 March after fierce urban combat, for which he received the Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross. He was awarded the Swords on 30 March 1944. During the Battle of Kursk in July-August 1943, his southern pincer made initial gains but was stopped; Hitler terminated the operation on 13 July due to the Allied landing in Sicily, despite Manstein's protests that reserves could secure victory. Ordered to retreat to the Dnieper in September 1943, he implemented scorched-earth policies, later cited in trials. Soviet advances recaptured Kharkov and Kiev by November, and in January 1944, he advocated further withdrawals, but Hitler refused. Without approval, he orchestrated a breakout from the Korsun Pocket in February and, encircled in Kamenets-Podolsky in March, persuaded Hitler to allow escape, though this led to his relief from command on 30 March 1944.
Following Germany's surrender, Manstein was captured by British forces on 26 August 1945. He testified at the Nuremberg Trials in August 1946, contributing to a document absolving the Wehrmacht of Holocaust responsibility, denying knowledge of Einsatzgruppen or the Commissar Order despite contradictory evidence. Tried in Hamburg from August to December 1949, he was convicted on nine of seventeen charges, including mistreatment of prisoners of war, civilian executions, enforcing the Commissar Order, and scorched-earth tactics, receiving an 18-year sentence reduced to 12 in February 1950. Due to health concerns, including eye problems, and advocacy from figures like Winston Churchill and Konrad Adenauer amid Cold War rearmament needs, he served less than four years and was released on 7 May 1953. In the mid-1950s, he advised the West German government on reconstructing the armed forces, addressing the Bundestag on 20 June 1953 to advocate for a professional army with 18-24 months of service and a robust reserve system. His memoirs, Verlorene Siege published in 1955 and translated as Lost Victories, critiqued Hitler's strategic meddling while emphasizing military operations, largely omitting political and ethical dimensions; a second volume, Aus einem Soldatenleben in 1958, covered his life from 1887 to 1939. After residing in Essen and Bonn, he settled near Munich, where his wife passed away in 1966. Congratulated by the Bundeswehr on his 80th birthday, Manstein died of a stroke on 9 June 1973 at age 85 near Munich, buried with full military honors in Dorfmark, Bad Fallingbostel. His legacy encompasses prestigious awards like the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords, reverence as a strategic mastermind, and ongoing debates over his involvement in war crimes and potential perjury.
Source:
https://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/
https://en.wikipedia.org/
https://www.tracesofwar.com/
https://grokipedia.com/
https://rk.balsi.de/index.php?action=list&cat=300
https://www.unithistories.com/units_index/index.php?file=/officers/personsx.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20091027052912fw_/http://geocities.com/orion47.geo/index2.html
https://forum.axishistory.com/
https://www.wehrmacht-awards.com/forums/
https://www.bundesarchiv.de/en/
https://www.geni.com/
https://books.google.com/
https://www.walter-frentz-collection.de/fotoarchiv/personenarchiv-a-z/personen-l-m/
Additional books: Lost Victories by Erich von Manstein (1958); Erich von Manstein: Hitler's Master Strategist by Benoit Lemay (2010); Manstein: Hitler's Greatest General by Mungo Melvin (2010).
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