The Enigma of General Blaskowitz, by Richard Giziowski, Hippocrene Books, New York, 1997, $29.95.
Colonel-General Johannes Blaskowitz was the man who both the Allies and the German high command believed deserved to be promoted (along with General Heinz Guderian) to the exalted rank of field marshal–but was not. Indeed, within the Wehrmacht Blaskowitz was known as "the field marshal without baton." Instead, on July 19, 1940, in a celebrated Reichstag session in Berlin, his Führer and Reich Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, chose to publicly humiliate him by promoting several junior officers above him. Nevertheless, his military reputation–as well as his moral credentials–survived the war intact.
The reason was simple: He was the only German army general to protest–both orally and in written reports–the wartime atrocities of both the Waffen SS and the "Special Purpose Groups" in Poland in 1939, where the first stirrings of the later full-blown Holocaust were felt. In addition, he angered Hitler and Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler by telling them that the Führer's elite bodyguard regiment was not yet fit for front-line combat. He also wanted to arrest its commander, General Josef "Sepp" Dietrich, for war crimes against the Poles.
Blaskowitz's written reports were shelved, however, by Luftwaffe Field Marshal Erhard Milch and German high command chief Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, so it is not known for sure if Hitler ever saw them. The Führer pardoned the SS killers in Poland as a matter of state policy. For two months, Blaskowitz directed the army occupation of defeated Poland from Russian Czar Nicholas II's former imperial hunting lodge at Spala. There he came into conflict with Hitler's handpicked governor-general, Hans Frank. The latter asked Hitler to fire Blaskowitz, but the Führer demurred and sent him to occupied France to await the expected Allied invasion.
Thus, like Erwin Rommel, Blaskowitz was one of the few top German field commanders of World War II who saw no action on the Eastern Front against the Red Army–perhaps because he likely would have protested Hitler's "Commissar Order" to summarily shoot all captured Communist Party officials. Indeed, Rommel might have done so as well, since he tore up the "Commando Order" in North Africa.
Although Blaskowitz was well thought of within the upper echelons of the German army after the 1938 union with Austria, Hitler saw Blaskowitz as "a general with no capacity to lead tank units." But Blaskowitz mobilized his troops and occupied Bohemia in March 1939 on less than a day's notice and, with Hitler, entered the Hradschin Palace in Prague in triumph. He led a model occupation of Bohemia, with few problems reported on either side until the establishment of the Reich Protectorate on April 16, 1939, under Baron Constantin von Neurath.
Later that year, the general conquered Warsaw, a feat he attributed to army artillery and mortars, not to the Luftwaffe's vaunted Junkers Ju-87 Stuka dive bombers. His next combat activity was against the French underground in southern France, during the American invasion of that area in August 1944. He later fought against the British, to whom he surrendered on May 5, 1945.
Allied prosecutor Brig. Gen. Telford Taylor put Blaskowitz on trial for war crimes in 1948, but on the second day of the trial–February 5, 1948–Blaskowitz either committed suicide by jumping from an upper tier of the Nuremberg prison or was pushed to his death by four Estonian SS murderers. According to the author, the question of exactly how he died remains unanswered.
This is an excellent book that will be enjoyed by all World War II aficionados.
Blaine Taylor
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A few corrections and emendations:
1. Col. General Blaskowitz was military governor of Poland from October, 1939 through the beginning of May, 1940. That is somewhat longer than the 2 months the reviewer cites.
2. The Führer did not "demur" from the suggestion that Blaskowitz be fired. Far from it. Blaskowitz was initially sent West in May 1940 to command the Ninth Army at Trier, which was scheduled to be part of the assault against France. However, Hitler insisted that Blaskowitz be removed from command at the last minute, calling him "loathsome" and "intolerable". (P. 222)
The Colonel-General was then placed on inactive reserve, but periodically recalled when a particularly odious command required a skillful general–these commands were inevitably doomed to failure before he arrived on the scene, but Blaskowitz nevertheless managed to conduct some astoundingly successful retreats, saving the lives of many of his soldiers. During his last command in Holland, he permitted Allied planes to drop food supplies to the civilian population, and made every effort to prevent civilian casualties.
3. It should not be forgotten that Colonel-General Blaskowitz was a devout Christian. This is crucial for two reasons: first, it helps us understand his motivations for opposing German war crimes; second, it plays an important part in evaluating the likelyhood that his death was suicide.
4. Blaskowitz's "death by gravity"occurred before the start of the first day of his trial, not on the "second day". Because the charges were mainly "knowing about atrocities and failing to report them, his chances of acquittal were deemed quite good by his defense attorney. However, by presenting the evidence that would exonerate Blaskowitz, his co-defendants (other senior Wehrmacht officers) would have been implicated, because they had probably read Blaskowitz's memoranda, or at least heard what they contained.
5. It should be pointed out that the "Estonian SS murderers" were, in fact, serving as guards for the War Crimes Tribunal. Their background is, indeed, dubious, and one has to wonder why the War Crimes Commission would employ such men at all. This also suggests an answer to the question of why Blaskowitz's death was never thoroughly investigated (despite the prima facie inconsistencies between the guard's various testimonies)–the results of such an inquiry might have been embarrassing to the wrong people.
This man deserves to be remembered.