Erich von Manstein - Verlorene Siege

Erich von Manstein was one of Germany's most famous field marshals during the Second World war. He participated in several of the major campaigns: the conquest of Poland in 1939, the second stage of the French campaign in 1940, and several battles on the Eastern Front during from 1941 to 1944, when he was ousted from his position by Hitler. Published in 1966, Verlorene Siege is his account of war as directly perceived by him in the various positions he had from division commander to army group commander.

Von Manstein contributed considerably to the planning of the 1940 campaign, suggesting that the main attack should take place through the Ardennes woods, a wholly unexpected direction that led to the rapid collapse of the entire northern wing of the Allied forces. After commanding a panzer group in the Leningrad front, he led the campaign on the Crimean peninsula in 1941-1942 that culminated in the capture of Sevastopol and led to his nomination as Field Marshal. He became commander of the Don Army Group right after the siege of Paulus' Sixth Army in Stalingrad, and led the desperate and ultimately futile attempts to rescue it. He also participated in the Kursk battle in 1943, the last attempt of the Germans to capture the initiative on the Eastern front.

It is this direct experience and viewpoint that makes this an interesting book. At the same time, it also defines its limitations. As the descendant of a long line of Prussian generals, von Manstein regards himself as a technician of the war whose mission is to conduct it with the most effective means possible towards concrete and reachable objectives. While he cannot completely disentangle himself from "the political aspects" of war - as he expresses it - he draws a tight boundary around his mission and stays within it. His task was to win the war - or at its later stages, at least create a situation where if might have been ended in a stalemate situation - and he pursues that with single-minded precision and determination. He laments the total lack of real German war strategy - telling just how it could have been won in the political arena - but leaves it at the doorstep of Hitler's. There is not a drop of remorse to be found in the book, except for its title: "Lost Victories".

Much of the later parts of the book tell a story of the relationship of von Manstein and Hitler, who had taken the leadership of German armed forces to himself in 1940 and did not restrict himself from interfering directly in details of troop deployments and other operations. Von Manstein obviously loathed this situation and spares no effort to describe how it led to bad leadership. Still the limits he had imposed to himself made him unable to resist; when asked to take part in the 1944 attempt to assassinate Hitler, he replied "German Field Marshals don't mutiny".

It is this mindset, often only readable between the lines, that gives this book its significance and explanatory power. As a history of the great war it is limited and biased. As a story how the minds of high German commanders worked, and why the war played out like it id, it is unique.