Free Hitler's Commanders by Jr. Samuel W. Mitcham Page A

considered Hitler’s deputy a civilian and therefore beneath him. He rejected all invitations, without even the pretense of politeness. Because of Bock’s lack of social adroitness, Hitler soon had to transfer his difficult general back to Dresden. His own patrimony notwithstanding, Hitler himself held many Austrian traits in low regard, however, so Bock’s attitude was not to count against him.
    Later in 1938, Bock commanded some of the forces that occupied the Sudetenland. He was accompanied by his nine-year-old son, who was wearing a sailor’s suit and a beret. He wished, Bock told foreign journalists, to impress the boy with “the beauty of and exhilaration of soldiering.” 7 Shortly thereafter, another general ran afoul of the Nazis, and Bock was summoned to Berlin to replace Gerd von Rundstedt as commander-in-chief of Army Group 1.
    For the 1939 invasion of Poland, Bock’s headquarters was redesignated Army Group North, and it had a strength of about 630,000 men. Rundstedt was called out of retirement to command the other army group used in Poland (Army Group South) and had the major responsibility for the campaign. Bock nevertheless relished his role, for he liked Poles even less than south Germans or Austrians. He overran the Polish Corridor and drove all the way to Brest-Litovsk in eastern Poland, where he linked up with the Soviets. By early October Bock had successfully completed all his assignments and was on his way to the Western Front.
    According to the original German plan, Bock’s headquarters (now designated Army Group B) was supposed to direct the major effort against the Western Allies. Unfortunately (from Bock’s point of view) the German plan was an unimaginative rehash of the Schlieffen Plan, which had failed in 1914. Bock wrote a memorandum criticizing it, and Hitler agreed. Then, early in 1940, Erich von Manstein proposed a superior plan, which envisioned Rundstedt’s Army Group A delivering the main blow. Subsequently adopted, the Manstein Plan left Bock with a vital but secondary mission: drive into the Low Countries with enough vigor to convince the Allies that his was the main attack. That he succeeded in this mission no one can doubt. His two armies (the 18th and 6th) overran Holland and most of Belgium and finished off the remnants of the French forces at Dunkirk, taking tens of thousands of prisoners in the process.
    During the second phase of operations in the West, Bock, with three armies and two panzer groups under his control, overran western France. After the French capitulated, Bock was promoted to field marshal on July 19, 1940. After this he briefly commanded occupation forces in France but made himself so obnoxious that Hitler transferred him back to Poland, where he directed defenses on the Eastern Frontier. The dour field marshal was ill with stomach ulcers much of the winter.
    By now even Fedor von Bock was sick of the excesses of the Nazi regime and went so far as to knowingly tolerate having members of the anti-Hitler conspiracy on his staff. These men hoped to gain his support in a coup d’état against the Nazi government but were doomed to disappointment. Bock’s attitude was characteristic: “I will join you if you succeed but will have nothing to do with you if you fail.” Bock did not modify this position for the rest of the war.
    Field Marshal von Bock was opposed to the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941; nevertheless, his headquarters (now called Army Group Center) had the most important objective of the campaign—Moscow. Initially he was assigned 51 of the 149 German divisions committed to Operation Barbarossa, including nine panzer and seven motorized divisions. Despite his pessimism over Germany’s chances, Bock initially did very well in the invasion—perhaps even showing a flash of military genius in the process. Less than a week after the campaign began, Bock’s panzer spearheads closed in on Minsk, 170 miles behind the Soviet frontier. Hitler