Word: halder
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Guderian's tanks raced up the coast, seized Boulogne, seized Calais, neared Dunkirk, then were ordered to halt. Guderian protested but was told that it was Hitler's personal order, an important miscalculation that has never been fully explained. "The Fuhrer is terribly nervous," Chief of Staff Franz Halder wrote in his diary. "Frightened by his own success, he is afraid to take any chance and so would rather pull the reins...
Chief of Staff Halder testified after the war that the German generals were ready to overthrow the dictator if the Czechoslovak crisis of 1938 led to actual fighting. But when the British and French caved in at Munich, so did the German generals. Assassins, too, narrowly failed on several occasions. In November 1939, for instance, Hitler made a speech in Munich, then left ahead of schedule -- just 13 minutes before a time bomb went off and killed several bystanders...
Despite a few convulsive counterattacks, the Germans swept forward all along the front. Blessed by dry weather, the armored spearheads advanced as much as 30 miles a day. As early as Sept. 5, Germany's Chief of Staff Franz Halder wrote in his journal: "As of today, the enemy is practically beaten." The next day, the Wehrmacht captured Cracow, Poland's second city. Two days later, the first tanks of the 4th Panzer Division reached the suburbs of Warsaw, where they encountered sniper fire from apartment windows and found major streets blocked by overturned buses. While the tanks paused...