The Generals

Rank: General Secretary of the Communist Party and Soviet Generalissimo
Fate:  Died Russia 1953, aged 74

By the outbreak of the Second World War, Stalin held complete power in the Soviet Union. This meant he was also supreme commander of Soviet armed forces. When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, the crisis that unfolded was largely of Stalin’s own making, for two reasons.

The first was his ruthless liquidation of senior military commanders in the ‘Great Purge’ of 1937. This led to many of the best and most experienced Red Army commanders (most notably Marshal Tukachevsky, an early Soviet advocate of mobile, armoured warfare) being executed on fabricated charges of conspiracy, to satisfy Stalin’s own paranoia about internal enemies. Many more were imprisoned or removed from command. The totals included 13 of 15 army commanders, 8 of 9 admirals, and 154 of 186 division commanders. This effectively decapitated the Red Army, leaving it bereft of experienced military leadership when Germany attacked in 1941.

Stalin’s second great contribution to the crisis of 1941 was his failure to prepare the Soviet Union for invasion, despite clear intelligence from agents such as Richard Sorge that a Nazi attack was imminent. In 1941 Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union remained uneasy allies. Everyone knew that a conflict was inevitable at some point, but Stalin was convinced that Hitler would not attack before 1942, and then only after Britain had been defeated. The nature of the Soviet regime, which meant that subordinates were unwilling to present Stalin with information that he wouldn’t like, and Stalin’s own arrogance, meant that little was done to prepare the Soviet Union to resist an attack in June 1941.

When Operation Barbarossa began, Stalin entered a state of shock. He immediately recognised the scale of his misjudgement and the disaster that loomed, but did not know how to deal with it. Only six weeks after the invasion did Stalin speak to the nation by radio, demanding defence of ‘every inch of Soviet soil to the last drop of blood’, and that those in occupied zones must rise up and fight as partisans.

In the first months of the war, Stalin repeatedly interfered in military planning. First he demanded counter-attacks that the Red Army was not ready to make, and which ended in disaster and huge losses. Then he looked for scapegoats, ordering the arrest and execution of commanders such as General Pavlov and his Chief of Staff on charges of deliberate sabotage of the war effort. Stalin also refused requests for permission to retreat by his field commanders, contributing directly to a series of disastrous Red Army encirclements including at Kiev in September 1941.

That autumn, however, Stalin did hold his nerve, and decided not to leave Moscow when it was threatened with German capture. This decision helped to convince a Soviet leadership and population on the brink of panic that the war was not lost. As the war went on (in contrast to Hitler) Stalin also began to allow his generals greater freedom to plan and execute the war as they saw fit, and promoted talented professionals such as Zhukov, Vasilevsky and Rokossovsky to senior command. Nevertheless Stalin still kept a close eye on his generals, and remained the central figure at Stavka planning meetings.

Perhaps Stalin’s greatest contribution to victory was as a figurehead for the Soviet war effort. In Soviet propaganda, the image of Stalin was ever-present. The Soviet people had been indoctrinated in the belief that he was a father-figure, all-knowing and all-powerful, and a tireless and devoted servant to the cause of victory. When Germany attacked, Stalin allowed a revival of traditional expressions of Russian patriotism, declaring the war with Nazi Germany to be the ‘Great Patriotic War’. When the Red Army attacked with cries of ‘For Stalin! For Mother Russia!’ many were calling upon sincere and deeply-held sources of inspiration.

Stalin’s many and terrible crimes against his own people, and the peoples of Eastern Europe and elsewhere, remain his most important legacy. But his wartime leadership was similarly influential on world history. In politics and diplomacy many of his wartime decisions remain deeply suspect and controversial – for example, his 1939 pact with Hitler and his treatment of Poland. As a military leader, Stalin’s record was one of initial reckless incompetence, giving way to an appreciation that strategy was best left to the professionals. And as a figurehead and role model, seen through the prism of Soviet propaganda, Stalin remained an extremely potent force.

Rank: Marshal of the USSR
Fate: Died Moscow 1973, aged 90

Bio: Budyonny was conscripted into the Russian Tsarist army in 1903, and fought in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904/5. As a young cavalryman, he distinguished himself with exceptional courage and horsemanship. By the First World War he was a senior sergeant in an elite regiment of dragoons, who sided with the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Budyonny was an early and close personal ally of Josef Stalin. The two men served alongside each other during the Civil War and the Soviet-Polish war. Despite defeat in Poland, Budyonny emerged from these wars as a famous and admired cavalry commander and a Bolshevik legend.

Budyonny was staunchly loyal to Stalin. He was complicit in his ‘Great Purge’ of 1937, giving testimony against fellow officers who were later executed, and in which his own wife was punished for adultery by being sent to a camp for nearly 20 years. Budyonny also opposed attempts to modernise the Red Army – he clung stubbornly to the belief that tanks were no match for good cavalry.

When war came, Marshal Budyonny commanded the ‘South-Western Direction’, overseeing Red Army operations in Ukraine. Like most other Soviet commanders, he had no answer to the German ‘Blitzkrieg’ attack. After his request for permission to retreat was turned down by Stalin and the Stavka High Command, most of his forces, more than 500,000 men, were encircled by the Germans around Kiev. It ranks as one of the greatest military disasters in history.

For the rest of the war Budyonny held commands of secondary importance. He was, as General Konev put it, ‘a man with a past, but no future.’ In 1942 his North Caucasus Front did play a key role in opposing the German advance into the Caucasus. Their goal was the oilfields of Baku. Their loss would have had a major impact on the course of the war, but Budyonny successfully parried all attempts by Von Kleist’s over-extended Army Group A to break through.

In 1943 Budyonny became Commander-in-Chief of Cavalry, a supervisory role which entailed no field command. He remained a devoted cavalryman and horse-lover, and after the war turned to horse-breeding - the Budyonny breed remains popular in Russia today.

Rank: Marshal of the USSR
Fate: Died Moscow 1973, aged 75

Bio: As a 19 year old Russian peasant, Ivan Konev was conscripted into the Tsarist army to fight in the First World War. He later fought with the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War, and chose to stay on in army. He attended military academy and rose through the ranks.

In May 1941 Konev was appointed commander of the 19th Army in Ukraine. The German invasion began a few weeks later. The first weeks of the war were disastrous for the Red Army, but Konev handled his troops with skill and fought stubborn defensive battles during the retreat towards Moscow. As a result he was promoted to command of the Western Front, guarding the approach to the Soviet capital.

But in the opening stages of the German assault on Moscow, most of Konev’s troops became encircled near Vyazma, resulting in their death or capture. Stalin wanted Konev arrested and shot. But General Zhukov intervened, and persuaded Stalin to spare Konev.

Konev served as Zhukov’s deputy for a short time, before returning to senior command. He was heavily involved in the bloody and wasteful Soviet offensives around Rzhev in 1942, and following the Battle of Kursk in 1943, he led the counter-offensive that began the liberation of Ukraine. For success in these operations Konev was promoted to Marshal.

In 1945, encouraged by Stalin, Zhukov and Konev took part in ‘a race’ to Berlin. Konev’s 1st Ukrainian Front approached Berlin from the southeast, and played a crucial role in the encirclement and conquest of the city.

Konev was one of Russia’s greatest military leaders. He was said to be Stalin’s favourite general, admired by the dictator for his ruthlessness, and twice decorated as a Hero of the Soviet Union.

Rank: Marshal of the USSR
Fate: Died Moscow 1968, aged 71

Bio: Although born in Russia, Rokossovsky’s father was Polish and he grew up in Warsaw (Poland was then part of the Russian Empire). Orphaned at the age of 14, Rokossovsky went to work in a factory, but enlisted in a Russian cavalry regiment when the First World War broke out in 1914. Courage and an innate grasp of military leadership led to his rapid promotion. During the Russian Revolution he joined the Bolsheviks, and became a highly-decorated and successful commander of Red Army cavalry.

By 1937 Rokossovsky had risen to command the 5th Cavalry Corps. But that year he was arrested during Stalin’s ‘Great Purge’, in which thousands of Red Army officers were executed, imprisoned or dismissed. Rokossovsky was accused of working with the Polish secret service, but despite brutal torture at the hands of the NKVD, he refused to sign the confessions put before him. In 1940 he was released, and after an interview with Stalin, resumed his former command.

When Germany invaded in 1941, Rokossovsky (an early advocate of armoured warfare) commanded the 9th Mechanised Corps. Most of his forces were destroyed when he was ordered to make futile counterattacks against the Germans. That autumn Rokossovsky commanded the 16th Army during the desperate fighting outside Moscow. His army was in the thick of the fighting and played a crucial role in the Soviet victory.

In March 1942 Rokossovsky was hit by a shell fragment and hospitalised for two months. He returned in time to command the Don Front during Operation Uranus - the decisive Soviet counterattack outside Stalingrad. The following summer at the Battle of Kursk, Rokossovsky’s army group was once more in the thick of the fighting as the Red Army secured another decisive victory. But his greatest triumph came during Operation Bagration, the 1944 Soviet summer offensive in Byelorussia. Rokossovsky proposed a bold but risky change to the plan of attack. It came off brilliantly, and Stalin would later refer to Rokossovsky as his most gifted strategist.

At the end of Operation Bagration, Marshal Rokossovsky’s troops were at the outskirts of Warsaw – the city in which he’d grown up. Polish underground forces in the city rose up against the Germans, but Rokossovsky did not come to their aid. Instead the Polish rising, starved of supplies and ammunition, was slowly crushed by the Germans. This episode remains deeply controversial. Russian historians argue that German resistance and the need to resupply Rokossovsky’s forces forced a pause in the advance. Polish and most Western historians believe Stalin ordered Rokossovsky to halt, in order to allow the Nazis to crush the Polish rising – this got rid of the very people who would have most opposed Stalin’s Communist takeover of Poland in the following years.

In 1945 Rokossovsky’s 2nd Byelorussian Front fought a bloody campaign in Pomerania, finally linking up with British forces in north Germany in April 1945. That summer, Marshal Rokossovsky commanded the Victory Parade in Moscow, riding alongside Marshal Zhukov. He later became Poland’s Minister of Defence, associated with many measures of Soviet repression. He returned to Moscow in 1956, and retired six years later.

Rank: Marshal of the USSR
Fate: Died Moscow 1970, aged 75

Bio: Timoshenko was from a peasant family in Bessarabia, a region today split between Ukraine and Moldova. In 1915 he was conscripted into a Russian cavalry regiment to fight in the First World War. When the Russian Revolution began he joined the Bolsheviks. He commanded a cavalry division in the Civil War, fighting at Tsaritsyn where he met Josef Stalin and Kliment Voroshilov, and later served with General Budyonny’s 1st Cavalry Army.

As a faithful ally of Josef Stalin (their children were married in 1944), Timoshenko was soon promoted to positions of senior military command, as well as a seat on the Central Committee of the Communist Party. During the Finnish-Soviet ‘Winter War’ of 1939-40, Timoshenko replaced the inept Vorishilov as Minister of Defence. Where his predecessor had overseen a string of humiliating reverses, Timoshenko forced a victorious end to the war. He also began much-needed reform of the Red Army.

When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Stalin replaced Timoshenko as Minister of Defence, and sent him into the field to attempt to rescue a series of military crises. But there was little Timoshenko could do to avert the disaster of the Kiev encirclement that September.

Marshal Timoshenko, who had been the Soviet Union’s senior general and Stalin’s favourite before the war, was gradually eclipsed by the rising stars of Generals Zhukov and Vasilevsky. This fall from the top tier was confirmed after Timoshenko’s Kharkov offensive of May 1942, which, after initial success, ended in disaster and the encirclement of more than 200,000 Soviet troops. He was then placed in charge of the Stalingrad Front, but proved powerless to prevent the Germans from crossing the Don River and was replaced by General Gordov.

Timoshenko then took charge of the Leningrad Front for a period, before being appointed Chairman of the Stavka High Command. Despite his defeats, Timoshenko continued to enjoy Stalin’s support, and helped co-ordinate the victorious advance of Soviet forces in the Baltic in 1944, and then in south-west Europe. He held senior ceremonial military posts until his death in 1970.

Rank: Marshal of the USSR
Fate: Died Moscow 1977, aged 82

Bio: Vasilevsky, the son of a Russian priest, volunteered to fight in the First World War. By 1917 he was a battalion commander, but became disillusioned with the war and deserted. He was later conscripted into the Red Army during the Russian Civil War and commanded an infantry regiment.

Vasilevsky became an expert in training and planning. He joined the Directorate of Military Training, and later the Soviet Staff Officers Academy.
In 1937, because of Stalin’s ‘Great Purge’ of senior military officers, Vasilevsky found himself suddenly promoted to one of the many new vacancies on the General Staff.

When war began in June 1941, Vasilevsky was Deputy Chief of the General Staff and one of the senior military planners of the Stavka High Command. He worked tirelessly and effectively throughout the Battle of Moscow, a performance that won the trust and confidence of Josef Stalin.

In 1942 Stalin made Vasilevsky Chief of the General Staff. That summer he travelled to Stalingrad with General Zhukov, where together they masterminded the defence of the city and the decisive Soviet victory that followed.

In February 1943 Vasilevsky’s meteoric rise continued when he was promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union. He continued to play a crucial role in the planning of all major Soviet operations until 1945, when Stalin gave him command of the 3rd Byelorussian Front. In this role, he oversaw the final Red Army assault on the German stronghold of Koenigsberg.

After victory in Europe, Stalin sent Vasilevsky to command Soviet forces in the Far East, where he implemented the Manchurian Strategic Offensive. This lightning campaign dealt a mortal blow to any lingering Japanese hopes of continuing the war.

When Vasilevsky retired in 1957 he was one of the most decorated soldiers in Soviet history, including two Hero of the Soviet Union awards. Although not a dominating personality like many of those around him, Vasilevsky was a highly effective military planner, and the architect of many great victories.

Rank: Army General
Fate: Died of wounds near Kiev 1944, aged 42

Bio: Vatutin was the son of Russian peasants, who joined the Red Army as an officer in 1920 during the Russian Civil War. He was a dedicated Communist Party member who trained as a staff officer at the Soviet military academy. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 Vatutin was the General Staff’s Chief of Operations. But talent for staff work was found wanting in the disastrous opening phase of the war, and he was replaced by the meticulous Aleksandr Vasilevsky.

Vatutin was sent to the Northwestern Front (defending Leningrad) as Chief of Staff, where he began to redeem his reputation as a military commander. Vatutin favoured bold, aggressive action, and although he suffered several costly reverses, he helped to encircle German forces at Demyansk in February 1942, creating a major crisis for the German High Command.

In October Vatutin took command of the Southwestern Front, which helped to encircle the German 6th Army at Stalingrad. In 1943 he also played a leading role in the Battle of Kursk. His Voronezh Front, defending the open steppe on the southern flank of the Kursk salient, absorbed all the punishment that von Manstein’s forces could throw at it, before going over to the offensive. Vatutin’s troops liberated the city of Belgorod, which Stalin ordered to be marked by an artillery salute in Moscow – the first such celebration of the war.

In November 1943, using the bold, imaginative and aggressive tactics that had become his trademark, Vatutin liberated Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. That winter his forces were involved in savage fighting at the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket, leading to huge losses on both sides.

In February 1944 Vatutin’s staff car was ambushed by Ukrainian nationalist partisans. The general was seriously injured, and died six weeks later when his wounds became infected.

Vatutin is little known in the West, but was regarded at the time as one of the more original and daring Soviet commanders. His operations often proved very costly, but he was respected by Stalin (not least for his ardent Communism) and by German opponents alike.

Rank: Marshal of the USSR
Fate: Died Moscow 1969, aged 88

Bio: Voroshilov was one of the Bolshevik old guard, having joined the party in 1905 at the age of 25. He developed close ties with Joef Stalin, and when the Russian Revolution was followed by civil war, the two fought together in the defence of Tsaritsyn (in tribute to Stalin’s exaggerated role in the city’s defence, it was later renamed Stalingrad). When the Red Army invaded Poland in 1920 the two served alongside each other again as Political Commissars of Budyonny’s 1st Cavalry Army.

As a loyal Bolshevik with close connections to Stalin, Voroshilov rose rapidly in both political and military rank. He became a member of the Politburo and in 1934 was appointed People’s Commissar (Minister) of Defence. The next year he was promoted to Marshal. His loyalty and subservience to Stalin was total, and in 1937 during Stalin’s Great Purge, he readily turned against former army comrades, ensuring their demise.

When the Soviet Union went to war with Finland in 1939, the disarray of the Red Army following the Purges and Voroshilov’s own incompetence were exposed to the world in a string of humiliating setbacks. Voroshilov was demoted, and his place taken by Marshal Timoshenko.

During the crisis that followed the German invasion in 1941, Stalin sent Voroshilov to oversee the defence of Leningrad. But despite plenty of evidence of his own bravery, making regular visits to heavily-shelled areas of the frontline, Voroshilov failed to stem the German advance. It was only when General Zhukov arrived to take charge that the situation was stabilised.

Voroshilov was effectively side-lined for the rest of the war. He had never got to grips with the developments in warfare since his own frontline service in the 1920s. Instead he became a figurehead, and after Stalin’s death in 1953, Voroshilov became Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (titular head of state) until his retirement in 1960.

Rank: Marshal of the USSR
Fate: Died Moscow 1974, aged 77

Bio: Zhukov was from a poor peasant family near Moscow. In 1915 he was conscripted into a cavalry regiment to fight in the First World War. His bravery soon won him medals and promotion, and Zhukov continued to distinguish himself in the Russian Civil War. He rose to command a cavalry regiment, and went to military school where he earned a reputation as a dedicated and hard-working student.

In 1938 Zhukov was sent to command Soviet forces in Mongolia, where tensions were running high with Japanese forces across the border in Manchuria. Fighting broke out in an undeclared war the following year, and at Khalkhin Gol, Zhukov won a brilliant victory using air power and fast-moving tank columns – much like a German ‘Blitzkrieg’. For this success, Zhukov received his first Hero of the Soviet Union award.

When Germany invaded in 1941, Zhukov was Chief of the General Staff, but found himself frequently overruled by Stalin in the disastrous early stages of the war. In frustration, Zhukov asked for a field command. He organised a counter-attack as part of the doomed Battle of Smolensk, and then took charge of Leningrad’s defences, helping to save the city from capture. Zhukov was recalled to the Stavka High Command, where he oversaw the successful defence of Moscow and the launch of the Red Army’s first great counter-offensive that winter.

In 1942 Zhukov became Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Soviet Armed Forces, although for certain operations he still assumed field command. This was the case with Operation Mars, a plan by Zhukov to recapture the city of Rzhev which ended in a bloody repulse. This has been described as Zhukov’s ‘forgotten defeat’. It was certainly overshadowed by events at Stalingrad, where Zhukov also played a critical role in organising the defence of the city, and the suVbsequent Soviet offensive that encircled the German 6th Army and led to a decisive victory.

In Russia, Zhukov became known as ‘The Victory Marshal’. He played a central role in most of the great Soviet successes that followed, helping to lift the Siege of Leningrad in 1943, orchestrating the Battle of Kursk, and overseeing Operation Bagration in 1944. Later that year Stalin put him in command of the 1st Byelorussian Front, entrusting him with the final offensive of the war in Europe and the taking of Berlin.

Zhukov was a four times Hero of the Soviet Union, and at the end of the war led the Victory Parade through Moscow’s Red Square riding a grey Arab stallion. It was said that Stalin had wanted this role but couldn’t master the horse. If true, it must have fed Stalin’s growing jealousy of Zhukov. After the war the Marshal was sidelined and demoted, and lived in constant fear of arrest. He returned to high military office after Stalin’s death in 1953. Zhukov remains the best known and most successful of all the USSR’s generals, and is regularly cited as one of history’s ‘great commanders’.

Rank: Fuehrer of Germany and Armed Forces Supreme Commander
Fate: Committed suicide Berlin 1945, aged 56

By 1941, the year of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Hitler had been Germany’s head of state for 8 years. In that time he had overseen the dramatic rearmament of German armed forces, the creation of a totalitarian Nazi state, and the enforcement of brutal racial laws that would culminate in the Holocaust and the murder of 6 million European Jews. In 1939 he had launched a European war that led to the rapid defeat of Poland and France and established complete German dominance of the continent.

Hitler’s greatest ambition had always been to wage a war of conquest against the Soviet Union. His aim was to destroy ‘Jewish-Bolshevism’ and establish ‘lebensraum’ (living space) for the German people in the east - in effect, a programme of German colonisation that would entail the brutal subjugation of the ‘inferior’ native Slavic population. The first step to achieving this goal came in 1941 with the launch of Operation Barbarossa – the invasion of the USSR, and the largest military operation in history.

The brilliant German victory against France in 1940 helped to convince Adolf Hitler that he was a gifted military commander. As the war against the Soviet Union progressed, this conviction led him to interfere more and more in the management of the campaign. Increasingly scornful of the professional qualifications of his generals, he surrounded himself with sycophantic officers who rarely questioned his judgement (e.g. Field Marshal Keitel, General Jodl).

Hitler, like all of his generals, was guilty of badly underestimating Soviet military strength in 1941. This, and his attempt to capture Leningrad, Moscow and Ukraine in a single campaign, contributed to the failure of Operation Barbarossa. This failure to attain a rapid knock-out blow against the Soviet Union meant Germany faced a long war in the east. This would always favour Hitler’s enemies (especially after he also declared war on the USA in December 1941) because of their superior resources.

Hitler had some successes in the east as a military leader. In the winter of 1941, in the face of a massive Red Army counteroffensive outside Moscow, he ordered his commanders to stand firm and dig in. This was against the advice of many of his top generals who advocated a full-scale retreat. Most historians acknowledge that Hitler’s stance prevented an even bigger catastrophe.

But such success only fed Hitler’s growing arrogance. He came to believe that military strategy was a question of ‘will’, and that the superior Nazi soldier would prevail as long as cowardice and defeatism were kept at bay. But when Hitler issued more ‘No Retreat’ orders in the face of Soviet counteroffensives (including to General Paulus’s 6th Army trapped at Stalingrad in 1942), no amount of Nazi fanaticism or ‘superior will’ could compensate for the growing superiority of the Red Army.

In 1944 Hitler’s inflexibility over defensive strategy led to bitter disputes with senior German field commanders such as Field Marshal von Manstein, leading to their dismissal.

Another weakness of Hitler’s military leadership was his fixation with ‘miracle weapons’, which he believed would transform the war in the East. These included the Tiger and Panther tanks (which he ordered to be rushed into action at the Battle of Kursk without adequate trials). Although these vehicles proved formidable, they could never be produced in enough numbers to defeat the hordes of T-34s turned out by the Soviet Union.

After the July Bomb Plot of 1944, in which Count von Stauffenberg’s briefcase bomb narrowly failed to assassinate Hitler in his military headquarters, the Fuehrer’s relationship with his army generals broke down almost completely. For the rest of the war, as Nazi Germany faced inevitable defeat, Hitler could only advocate fanatical resistance and order futile, doomed counter-attacks, such as Operation Solstice in Pomerania in February 1945.

In 1945 Hitler’s determination to fight to the bitter end condemned millions to a violent and pointless death. This was never more true than in the final Battle of Berlin, which produced more than half a million casualties and brought incalculable suffering to the civilian population.

Rank: Colonel General
Fate: Died Germany 1954, aged 65

Heinz Guderian graduated from military school and joined the German army as a signals officer in 1907. During the First World War he served on the Western Front as a staff officer, and stayed in the army following Germany’s defeat. Between the wars Guderian helped to develop new theories of mobile warfare in Germany. He argued that fast-moving armoured units, supported by motorised infantry and aircraft, should advance deep into the enemy rear to encircle enemy forces. This became the pattern for ‘Blitzkrieg’.

Guderian commanded a panzer corps during the invasion of Poland and then France, during which his units broke through French positions at Sedan and then raced to the Channel, trapping Allied forces at Dunkirk. Guderian became known for constantly driving the pace of the advance, and for being intolerant of any delay. He also developed a reputation for arguing with his superiors.

For Operation Barbarossa, Guderian was given command of his own Panzer Group. His forces achieved several remarkable breakthroughs, leading to massive encirclements of Soviet forces around Minsk and Kiev. But Guderian was frustrated at being ordered to divert away from Moscow at a critical moment in the campaign. He believed the Soviet capital was the only real decisive goal. Following bitter arguments with his commanding officer Field Marshal von Kluge, Guderian was relieved of command.

In 1943, Guderian returned to active service when he was made Inspector-General of Armoured Troops. This put him in charge of the training, equipping and organisation of Germany’s panzer divisions. In this role he was scornful of Hitler’s obsession with new wonder-weapons like the Tiger tank, and argued that Germany should concentrate on producing greater numbers of tried and tested tanks like the Panzer IV.

In July 1944 Guderian was appointed Chief of the Army General Staff, responsible for directing strategy on the Eastern Front. But at this late stage of the war he could only try to stave off the inevitable. After a furious shouting match with Hitler at Army Headquarters in March 1945, he was once more dismissed from command.

Guderian surrendered to American forces, but was not accused of war crimes (although the Soviets disagreed). After the war he wrote his best-selling memoir ‘Panzer Leader’ and advised the West German government on military affairs.

Rank: Field Marshal
Fate: Died Soviet captivity 1954, aged 73

Von Kleist was from an aristocratic family from the German state of Hesse. After military academy he joined the cavalry, served as a staff officer in the First World War and retired as a general in 1938. He was recalled to active service in the build up to war in 1939 and led a panzer corps in the invasion of Poland. He was then promoted to command of ‘Panzer Group Kleist’, the main grouping of German armour for the invasion of France, which played the decisive role in Germany’s rapid victory. This was despite furious arguments during the campaign between von Kleist and his subordinate, General Heinz Guderian, who accused his commander of being overly cautious.

In 1941 von Kleist’s Panzer Group led the German Blitzkrieg attack against Yugoslavia and Greece, before lining up as part of Army Group South for the invasion of the Soviet Union. His units immediately ran into a series of poorly co-ordinated Soviet counter-attacks that became known as the Battle of Brody, and led to enormous Red Army tank losses. Encounters with the superior Soviet T-34 and KV-1 tanks did, however, give German commanders pause for thought. Panzer Group Kleist went on to play a crucial role in the massive encirclements of Soviet troops at Uman and then Kiev in September 1941.

In the summer of 1942 von Kleist was given the job of spearheading the German advance into the Caucasus in the quest for Soviet oil. During an advance of nearly 400 miles, his troops became over-extended and desperately short of fuel, and lacked the force to punch through the last line of Soviet defences. After the fall of Stalingrad, Von Kleist had to lead a hurried retreat from the Caucasus before his troops were cut-off.

In 1943 Von Kleist was promoted to Field Marshal. But despite a stubborn defence of the ‘Kuban Bridgehead’ in western Caucasus, the overall strategic situation forced von Kleist into retreat. In March 1944 he was sacked by Hitler for authorising withdrawals that breached direct orders from the Fuehrer. He never held active command again.

After the war von Kleist was arrested by the Americans, and extradited on war crimes charges first to Yugoslavia (where he was sentenced to 15 years) and then the Soviet Union (where he received life). These sentences were for the murder of civilians by German forces in territories under his jurisdiction. He died of natural causes in a Soviet prison in 1954.

Rank: Field Marshal
Fate: Committed suicide 1944, aged 61

Von Kluge served on the German General Staff during the First World War, and between the wars commanded an artillery regiment and served as Inspector of Signals Troops. When war began he led the German 4th Army during the invasion of Poland, France, and then the Soviet Union. Hitler admired von Kluge’s grasp of mobile warfare, and after he sacked von Bock as commander of Army Group Centre in December 1941 for failing to capture Moscow, he made von Kluge his replacement.

As commander of Army Group Centre, von Kluge oversaw the German defence of the Rzhev salient in a series of brutal battles that lasted through much of 1942. In 1943 his forces, primarily Model’s 9th Army, formed the northern pincer of the Kursk Offensive.

Von Kluge had frequent doubts about Hitler’s conduct of the war and about Nazi genocidal policies in the east. His Chief of Staff at Army Group Centre, General Von Tresckow, was the ringleader of an anti-Hitler conspiracy that brought von Kluge into its confidence. But although von Kluge sympathised with their aims, he believed his honour as an officer was incompatible with joining a plot to assassinate the head of state.

In October 1943 von Kluge was involved in a serious car accident. After he’d recovered he took command of German forces in France. There, in July 1944, he received news that an attempt to assassinate Hitler in his bunker with a briefcase bomb had failed. Von Kluge, although not an active conspirator, was deeply implicated in this plot. When Hitler asked him to fly to Berlin, von Kluge instead killed himself with a cyanide capsule.

Rank: Field Marshal
Fate: Died Munich 1973, aged 85

Bio: Von Manstein came from a well-connected Prussian family with a long tradition of military service. He was commissioned into a German guards regiment in 1906, but was seriously wounded in the first weeks of the First World War. After his recovery he became a staff officer, and remained in the army following Germany’s defeat. In 1935 he joined the Army General Staff, where he was credited with inventing the concept of the assault gun, which led to the development of the StuG III.

Von Manstein helped to plan Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939, before devising the bold Ardennes offensive (‘The Manstein Plan’) that led to France’s rapid defeat in 1940. During Operation Barbarossa – the invasion of the Soviet Union – von Manstein commanded a panzer corps in the push towards Leningrad. That winter he was promoted to command of 11th Army in the Crimea, where he oversaw the long and bloody siege of Sevastopol. He eventually captured the city in July 1942. In reward, Hitler promoted him to Field Marshal.

Von Manstein and 11th Army were then sent to reinforce the siege of Leningrad, where they were involved in furious fighting as the Red Army attempted to break the blockade of the city. In November 1942 von Manstein was put in charge of Operation Winter Storm - the attempt to break through to the encircled 6th Army at Stalingrad. But the relief attempt was defeated by fierce winter weather and stubborn Soviet resistance.

In 1943 von Manstein was given command of German Army Group South, one of the three senior field commands on the Eastern Front. He won a decisive victory in the Third Battle of Kharkov before commanding the southern pincer of the massive Kursk Offensive. After a brutal slogging match involving heavy casualties on both sides, Hitler called off the attack, to the fury of von Manstein who believed he was on the verge of a breakthrough.

The numerical superiority of Soviet forces, combined with the Red Army’s growing mastery of modern warfare, meant the tide of war had now turned irrevocably on the Eastern Front. Von Manstein clashed with Hitler again over defensive strategy – the Field Marshal wanted a mobile defence, giving up ground to allow the formation of reserves which could be used in counterattacks. But Hitler insisted that no territory be given up. Infuriated by Hitler’s constant meddling, von Manstein became more outspoken in his criticism of the conduct of the war, and was dismissed from active service in March 1944.

After the war von Manstein served 4 years of a 12-year sentence for war crimes, before becoming an advisor to the West German army. In later years an aura of celebrity and genius surrounded von Manstein, fed not least by his self-serving memoirs. This was also possible because he had distanced himself from Hitler and his crimes, despite evidence that he lied about knowledge of atrocities committed by men under his own command on the Eastern Front.

Rank: Field Marshal
Fate: Committed suicide 1945, aged 54

Model was from a middle-class family from Saxony in Germany. After entering military school he fought in the First World War as an infantry officer on the Western Front, where he was decorated and seriously wounded, before becoming a staff officer.

In the 1930s Model became known as an outspoken general who embraced both the new doctrine of mobile warfare and the Nazi Party. He served as a staff officer in the Polish and French campaigns, before being given command of 3rd Panzer Division for Operation Barbarossa. He proved to be a relentless and energetic commander, highly respected but not widely liked. His success brought him further promotion, and by 1942 he was commanding the 9th Army with Army Group Centre near Rzhev.

During the Battles of Rzhev in 1942 Model earned a reputation as a master of defensive warfare, who used his reserves shrewdly and was able to drive his subordinates on to heroic feats of resistance. In 1943 his 9th Army was in the vanguard of the Kursk Offensive. But the depth and strength of Soviet defences proved insuperable, and Model was soon forced back to the Dnieper River.

In 1944 Hitler sent Model wherever a crisis loomed, earning him the soubriquet ‘the Fuehrer’s Fireman’. First he shored up Army Groups North’s position in the Baltic, for which he was promoted Field Marshal, then in March he was sent to Ukraine to take over from von Manstein. In July Model went to Byelorussia to try to rescue Army Group Centre from catastrophe as the full weight of Operation Bagration descended upon it. But he was unable to halt the Soviet advance before it had almost reached Warsaw.

In August Model was sent to France to take over from Field Marshal von Kluge after his suicide. But all of Model’s defensive skill was unable to offset the huge material preponderance of the Allied forces. After defeat in the Battle of the Bulge, Model’s forces were cornered in the Ruhr in 1945. Model, wanted for war crimes in the Soviet Union where his scorched earth strategy had left countless villages devastated, shot himself on 21st April 1945.