UBC: The German Generals Talk
Feb. 12th, 2010 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennyLiddell Hart, B. H. The German Generals Talk. 1948. New York: Quill 1979.
Reading this book was a very strange experience, a little like reading alternate history, because it is a dispatch from the world of the gentleman professional soldier. Each of those three words, "gentleman," "professional," and "soldier," is crucial.
Liddell Hart was himself a professional soldier1, and he clearly approached the German generals, not just on that basis, but with that as a kind of secret handshake: a tacit promise not to ask certain questions or bring up certain unpleasant facts. The word "Jew" does not appear in The German Generals Talk, nor do the words "Russian prisoners of war." There are no Einsatzgruppen; there is no Babi Yar; there is no deliberate policy of starvation against the population of Ukraine. (N.b., this book was published in 1948; the Nuremberg Trials were held in 1945 and 1946; those unasked questions may be partly, but cannot be entirely, the result of innocent ignorance.) In this book, World War II is a textbook war, fought for political reasons which gentlemen professional soldiers do not understand.2
"We are but simple soldiers!" goes the refrain. "We are uncomplicated manly men, with manly maps and manly tanks, doing the gentlemanly work of warfare! We are as innocent of politics as babes unborn!" Now, Liddell Hart recognizes that this ostrich-like attitude caused a lot of problems for the generals in terms of their failure to oppose Hitler while they still could, but he never seems to consider the possibility that it is disingenuous, even though his descriptions of the infighting among the officers of the Reichswehr and later the Wehrmacht make it perfectly perfectly plain that the German generals were not innocent of politics in the social sense, even if they vehemently preferred not to know what Germany's right hand was doing. He accepts the generals at face-value--and as gentlemen.
That, too, is a recurring refrain. Liddell Hart tells us how gentlemanly and pleasant the German generals are; the German generals remark on how gentlemanly and pleasant Polish generals are . . . around and around in a mutual admiration society circle jerk. All of the German generals seem to have read Liddell Hart's books on military theory; certainly, they all go out of their way to tell him how much they admire them. They bear their unpleasant imprisonment with dignity and understated humor, and Liddell Hart never seems to wonder just how carefully they might be tailoring their performance to their audience.
And he responds by believing them when they tell him they were professional soldiers and held themselves apart from politics; he joins them in pretending they didn't know and weren't responsible. He only asks them about the conduct of the fighting, not what went on in German-occupied territory, and he never asks "why" beyond loyalty to the Fatherland. (The only general described as an ardent Nazi in the entire book is one who is conveniently dead. Ditto the only one specified to have died still asserting his loyalty to Hitler.) And he empathizes with them, as if their imprisonment were unfair--ETA to clarify, as if the international brotherhood of the gentleman professional soldier did transcend national and ideological loyalties and should be understood to transcend national and ideological loyalties. As if the reasons for the war should be treated as irrelevant in assessing the men responsible for conducting it. (Notice, please, "conducting," not "fighting.") As if those reasons did not exist after war was declared.
Obviously, I don't agree with Liddell Hart's attitude, but that's because I don't accept the construct of the "gentleman professional soldier" as a good thing. It seems to me to be a shield behind which commanding officers can hide from the reality, on one side, of why they're being asked to fight (it's particularly brutal in this case, what with the Holocaust we aren't talking about), and on the other, of what they're ordering men to do: go out and die by the millions. It lets them talk about "the troops" as an undifferentiated and unimportant mass; the only thing that matters is whether you have enough of them to shove about on your manly map and beat your manly opponent. Who will shake your hand with a cry of "Well played!" and make an appointment for a rematch on Tuesday. Dead men (and women and children) have nothing to do with you.
It makes me a little angry.
With that very long caveat, this was, in fact, an interesting book; it gave me a very clear understanding of Hitler's mistakes in the invasion of Russia and thereafter (basically, after the winter of 1941, it's all the same mistake: the refusal to allow any retreat for any reason). And it gives a very clear sense of the generals' frustration, on the professional level, with Hitler and Hitler's lapdog generals Keitel and Jodl, who made their plans and gave their orders from bunkers nowhere near the front and without any understanding that their manly maps were not the territory.
And it was a window on a mindset I don't understand.
---
1His Wikipedia entry says that, though highly decorated, he only saw about seven weeks of actual combat--though he was gassed badly enough that he eventually had to retire from the army. I hypothesize unkindly, and probably unfairly, that this may be part of why he was able to hang onto the "gentleman professional soldier" idealization for so long. My judgment, I should make clear, is not on Liddell Hart's bravery, ability, or indeed his own sense of honor and gentlemanly behavior, merely on his (possibly willful) naivete.
ETA 01/02/2016: Sadly, this anecdote is untrue. I can't bring myself to delete it, because it's such a marvelous story, but it is PURE FICTION.
Wikipedia also offers this anecdote (from a biography of the Dulles family by Leonard Mosley), which I include here because it makes me like Liddell Hart a good deal better:
2I see from that Wikipedia article that this is the American "condensed" version of the book published in the U.K., The Other Side of the Hill. But since that title is an explicit reference to Liddell Hart's program of showing the German generals as gentlemanly professional soldiers just like the gentlemanly professional soldiers of the Allies, I doubt this tactful ellipsis is corrected there. If someone has read The Other Side of the Hill and can comment one way or the other, please do!
Reading this book was a very strange experience, a little like reading alternate history, because it is a dispatch from the world of the gentleman professional soldier. Each of those three words, "gentleman," "professional," and "soldier," is crucial.
Liddell Hart was himself a professional soldier1, and he clearly approached the German generals, not just on that basis, but with that as a kind of secret handshake: a tacit promise not to ask certain questions or bring up certain unpleasant facts. The word "Jew" does not appear in The German Generals Talk, nor do the words "Russian prisoners of war." There are no Einsatzgruppen; there is no Babi Yar; there is no deliberate policy of starvation against the population of Ukraine. (N.b., this book was published in 1948; the Nuremberg Trials were held in 1945 and 1946; those unasked questions may be partly, but cannot be entirely, the result of innocent ignorance.) In this book, World War II is a textbook war, fought for political reasons which gentlemen professional soldiers do not understand.2
"We are but simple soldiers!" goes the refrain. "We are uncomplicated manly men, with manly maps and manly tanks, doing the gentlemanly work of warfare! We are as innocent of politics as babes unborn!" Now, Liddell Hart recognizes that this ostrich-like attitude caused a lot of problems for the generals in terms of their failure to oppose Hitler while they still could, but he never seems to consider the possibility that it is disingenuous, even though his descriptions of the infighting among the officers of the Reichswehr and later the Wehrmacht make it perfectly perfectly plain that the German generals were not innocent of politics in the social sense, even if they vehemently preferred not to know what Germany's right hand was doing. He accepts the generals at face-value--and as gentlemen.
That, too, is a recurring refrain. Liddell Hart tells us how gentlemanly and pleasant the German generals are; the German generals remark on how gentlemanly and pleasant Polish generals are . . . around and around in a mutual admiration society circle jerk. All of the German generals seem to have read Liddell Hart's books on military theory; certainly, they all go out of their way to tell him how much they admire them. They bear their unpleasant imprisonment with dignity and understated humor, and Liddell Hart never seems to wonder just how carefully they might be tailoring their performance to their audience.
And he responds by believing them when they tell him they were professional soldiers and held themselves apart from politics; he joins them in pretending they didn't know and weren't responsible. He only asks them about the conduct of the fighting, not what went on in German-occupied territory, and he never asks "why" beyond loyalty to the Fatherland. (The only general described as an ardent Nazi in the entire book is one who is conveniently dead. Ditto the only one specified to have died still asserting his loyalty to Hitler.) And he empathizes with them, as if their imprisonment were unfair--ETA to clarify, as if the international brotherhood of the gentleman professional soldier did transcend national and ideological loyalties and should be understood to transcend national and ideological loyalties. As if the reasons for the war should be treated as irrelevant in assessing the men responsible for conducting it. (Notice, please, "conducting," not "fighting.") As if those reasons did not exist after war was declared.
Obviously, I don't agree with Liddell Hart's attitude, but that's because I don't accept the construct of the "gentleman professional soldier" as a good thing. It seems to me to be a shield behind which commanding officers can hide from the reality, on one side, of why they're being asked to fight (it's particularly brutal in this case, what with the Holocaust we aren't talking about), and on the other, of what they're ordering men to do: go out and die by the millions. It lets them talk about "the troops" as an undifferentiated and unimportant mass; the only thing that matters is whether you have enough of them to shove about on your manly map and beat your manly opponent. Who will shake your hand with a cry of "Well played!" and make an appointment for a rematch on Tuesday. Dead men (and women and children) have nothing to do with you.
It makes me a little angry.
With that very long caveat, this was, in fact, an interesting book; it gave me a very clear understanding of Hitler's mistakes in the invasion of Russia and thereafter (basically, after the winter of 1941, it's all the same mistake: the refusal to allow any retreat for any reason). And it gives a very clear sense of the generals' frustration, on the professional level, with Hitler and Hitler's lapdog generals Keitel and Jodl, who made their plans and gave their orders from bunkers nowhere near the front and without any understanding that their manly maps were not the territory.
And it was a window on a mindset I don't understand.
---
1His Wikipedia entry says that, though highly decorated, he only saw about seven weeks of actual combat--though he was gassed badly enough that he eventually had to retire from the army. I hypothesize unkindly, and probably unfairly, that this may be part of why he was able to hang onto the "gentleman professional soldier" idealization for so long. My judgment, I should make clear, is not on Liddell Hart's bravery, ability, or indeed his own sense of honor and gentlemanly behavior, merely on his (possibly willful) naivete.
ETA 01/02/2016: Sadly, this anecdote is untrue. I can't bring myself to delete it, because it's such a marvelous story, but it is PURE FICTION.
Wikipedia also offers this anecdote (from a biography of the Dulles family by Leonard Mosley), which I include here because it makes me like Liddell Hart a good deal better:
During the planning for the Suez Crisis, Hart had been asked by Anthony Eden to submit plans for a campaign against Egypt. After his first four drafts were rejected for a combination of contradictory reasons, Hart was nettled and sent back the original when asked for a fifth version. Eden liked it this time; he called for Hart and patronizingly said; "Captain Liddell Hart, here I am at a critical moment in Britain's history, arranging matters which might mean the life of the British Empire. And what happens? I ask you to do a simple military chore for me, and it takes you five attempts-plus my vigilance amid all my worries-before you get it right." Hart replied, "But sir, it hasn't taken five attempts. That version, which you now say is just what you wanted, is the original version." According to Leonard Mosley, there was a nasty silence while the prime minister's face reddened. Then he reached for an antique inkstand and, maddened, threw it at Hart. Hart sat still for a moment and then, with a tactician's instinct for the devastating counterstrike, stood up, seized a wastepaper basket, and jammed it over Eden's head.
2I see from that Wikipedia article that this is the American "condensed" version of the book published in the U.K., The Other Side of the Hill. But since that title is an explicit reference to Liddell Hart's program of showing the German generals as gentlemanly professional soldiers just like the gentlemanly professional soldiers of the Allies, I doubt this tactful ellipsis is corrected there. If someone has read The Other Side of the Hill and can comment one way or the other, please do!
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no subject
Date: 2010-02-12 07:09 pm (UTC)I'm fascinated by the "gentleman professional soldier" thing, in large part because I had the (erroneous) impression that WWI had already beaten that out of Europe's collective soldiery. But it looks like Hart wasn't the only one who managed to retain it, so maybe it was just the "aristocratic general" thing they lost, the notion that breeding was the sole, or at least a major, qualification for command.
Either way, yes. The notion that war is a dignified game played against (I originally typed "with," and maybe should have kept it) a gentlemanly opponent is kind of an appalling one, because of the whitewash it puts over reality.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-12 07:20 pm (UTC)And, yeah. I was with you on thinking WWI had replaced the playing fields of Eton with the dying fields of the Somme. But clearly not. :P
no subject
Date: 2010-02-12 08:18 pm (UTC)Now that I reflect, I wouldn't be surprised if the idea isn't entirely gone now, either -- there's still a class divide between officers and grunts here in the States, and I presume that's true elsewhere, too, possibly even to a greater extent. It might be more a matter of economic class than social, in that nobody cares who your grandparents were so long as your parents had the money to educate you at the proper schools; but if the "gentleman professional soldier" has gone away, it's probably because we've lost the notion of "gentleman" entirely, not because we've decided it doesn't have a place in war.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-12 08:23 pm (UTC)The idea existed, and its notional version continues to exist, because it's useful to have if you want to be capable of sending men and women to their deaths. I suppose it is appalling that the need to send people to their deaths still exists, and looks likely to exist for a long time, but as it's there, I can't blame people for deluding themselves as to their role in these things if it's what keeps them sane (to a point -- obviously, one can delude oneself into believing you've no real role or agency at all in these things; as, it seems, Liddell Hart and the German generals preferred to put forward as their official narrative).
no subject
Date: 2010-02-12 08:37 pm (UTC)That, to me, is different from the common human decency of not obliterating a retreating army that you don't believe will be an ongoing threat to you. It isn't the sending of soldiers to their deaths that I'm appalled by, either -- I'm enough of a pragmatist to recognize we're never going to get rid of war -- it's the way these men, by the sound of it, refused to recognize (or at least admit to) the horrific context and consequences of their work. I can and do blame these men for the extent of their self-delusion, or their public illusion if this book was a gentlemen's agreement between the generals and Hart not to talk about the icky stuff in front of the hoi polloi.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-12 08:52 pm (UTC)I object to the idea of the "gentleman professional soldier" as a special category that gets to play by special rules, such that the German generals will be believed and sympathized with when disclaiming all responsibility for the Third Reich.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-12 09:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-12 10:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-12 08:59 pm (UTC)I wonder how much the idea of the "gentleman professional soldier" (for which read "an officer and a gentleman", yes?) was necessitated to differentiate the officers from the feckless conscripts they commanded in their own minds, as well as from the politicians they served.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-13 12:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-16 04:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-14 05:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-14 09:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-14 09:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-14 09:57 pm (UTC)