Hitler’s Gunner Generals 

This is the story of the death of the German General Staff. The Prusso-German General staff was unique in Europe because it combined military planning, mobilization, deployment, and operations in a single agency free of political and administrative interference. The military – as opposed to the industrial – reasons that Germany lost the War are because they abandoned three guiding principles of Moltke: the unity of the Great German General Staff; Auftragstaktik – telling commanders what to do but not how to do it; and the duty of a chief of staff to stress-test his commander’s plans. The instrument forged to a war-winning capability by Moltke finally died in 1945, and it died because Gunner Generals let it die. It sometimes surprises just how many German gunners rose to the very top under the third Reich. By the end of the War 40% of German generals had begun their military careers in the artillery and the artillery provided 6 of the 19 Field Marshals. The lecture focusses on the operation of the highest headquarters in the German direction of the war and the part that the gunner generals took in it.