Word: rundstedts
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When the invasion of Russia began, Rundstedt received command of an Army Group. His job was to overrun the Ukraine, and he did his job better than either of his colleagues in the center and the north. When winter came and a disappointed Hitler assumed direction of the war, Rundstedt was hustled off to France to prepare for possible British invasion. For two years he built his fortifications and trained his none-too-ample forces. He stopped the Dieppe raid. He failed to stop the invasion of Normandy. He also disagreed sharply with Hitler's favorite Rommel, was relieved...
Rumors began to fly. Rundstedt was ill. He was well but under house arrest. He had sent his trusted aide, Lieut. Colonel von Harbour, to Lisbon to deal with Allied diplomats. The SS had caught and shot Harbour. Rundstedt had lost all hope of winning the war, had made contact with General von Seydlitz and Moscow's League of German Officers. But rumors about Rundstedt were nothing...
Last week the Nazis said that Stauffenberg first took a bomb in Hitler's conference room the day that Rundstedt relinquished his command, but left again without exploding it. Had the Junker taken Rundstedt's removal as a signal that the time had come to strike against the Nazis? Three months ago Allied intelligence officers had heard reports of a Wehrmacht coup in the making. Rumors linked Rundstedt's name with men like Finance Wizard Hjalmar Schacht, onetime Foreign Minister Constantin von Neurath, Baron von Weizsacker, Ambassador to the Vatican, former Oberbürgermeister Karl Goerdeler...
...light of Rundstedt's known dislike for: 1) the Nazis; 2) intuitive civilian direction of the war; 3) the risk of the destruction of the Wehrmacht if Germany was defeated, observers found it easy to credit whispered stories that Germany's No. 1 soldier was no longer loyal to Hitler. Once again, a strong wind was blowing from Tauroggen...
Hitler set up the Court of Honor to indict the Wehrmacht conspirators, used his People's Court to degrade the indicted by a civilian trial. With a mocking bow to the Army, Hitler named Rundstedt to a seat on the Court of Honor. The plebeian was still using the patrician...