Now, Leutnant Lüttich took command of the company. The municipal woods were pushed through and the company went over to the defensive on the northern edge of the municipal woods.
It was by no means logical for Weber to take command, considering the presence of several higher ranking platoon and group leaders. And each platoon leader should have been as well informed on the company’s attack plan as Weber. But Weber did not hesitate and took command. What is even more striking is the fact that he did it twice that day and achieved a considerable tactical success. As Weber had already earned both Iron Crosses, he received the Knight’s Cross for that action, an award given for deeds that influenced the course of combat decisively.
As previously mentioned, there was a thin line between independent action and arbitrary acts, and this was always in discussion within the German military leadership. For example, in the winter crisis of 1941/42, Hitler and the OKH tightened the strings of command with the following order,[4] as they feared a loss of control over the local commanders in the east would cause an uncontrolled retreat.
1) The higher command institutions (OKH, army groups and armies) have to manage the leadership more tightly. The principle of just giving the mission to the subordinate authorities and giving them full freedom in the execution of the mission has led on various occasions to the fact that the execution of the ordering command institution’s intention was jeopardized and serious disadvantages arose for the overall situation. Clear, unambiguous orders must be used again. The superior commanding institution must not hesitate to intervene ruthlessly in details in order to achieve the intended purpose. It bears the responsibility for the success, it has the right to ensure the execution of its intentions also by arranging individual measures. The duty of soldierly obedience leaves no room for the sensitivities of subordinate command institutions; instead, it requires the fastest and best execution in the sense of the commander’s original order.
The struggle for balance was also discussed in combat experience reports one year into the campaign, as the following source shows:[5]
1. Leadership
1) the German principle of issuing combat missions remains. The leadership, however, must not hesitate to intervene ruthlessly by order, if the nature of the execution endangers the fulfilment of the mission.
2) Particular care must be taken by the leadership to keep the troops in a tight grip when deployed in large areas, particularly during movement. Flexible leadership with short radio orders is particularly important.
On lower levels, especially with the panzer troops, there had been previous clashes over freedom of action, as the following order by the commander of IIIrd Motorized Corps indicates:
The events of recent days with their changing situations have placed very high demands on the physical capabilities of troops as well as on the flexibility of the leadership at all levels.
The troops should be persuaded that they will be ordered as little as possible by IIIrd Corps Headquarters; as mobile troops of a fast unit, they need to be clear about this. With such units and in vast areas with uncovered flanks, the situation frequently changes in the course of a day, sometimes from the ground up, and therefore new orders must be issued when opportunities would otherwise be missed and one would then have to pay with blood when it is cheaper to pay with sweat — or when the previous mission has become completely pointless. As long as the enemy still has his own will, not everything will work as scheduled. […]
Grumbling is psychological digestion and among us soldiers, no one finds it a problem. One can also rant freely and straight from the heart about frequent and changing orders that possibly bring the troops to the boundaries of their capabilities, or a demanded arduous counter-march, as long as one is clear that the justification of a new order can only be overseen by the commanding superior himself, not the subordinate who received it, who can only be aware of his limited sector. The subordinate must not lose sight of the fact that his superior is also a subordinate, who must cope with a new order and follow it.
All officers must be or become clear that the command of fast units demands a completely different tempo of command from infantry units.
While clearly pointing out that the extremely fluid combat situation of mobile units made independent command necessary, the commander also stressed the necessity for obedience from the point when orders were given. Together with the next source, this document also indicates that room for independent action was a question of the combat situation. Mobile warfare, especially by fast units at high tempo and over long distances, created many more situations for independent action than positional warfare. Therefore the switch from one form of the combat to the other demanded a rethinking of the balance between tight command and initiative, but also of the command process as a whole, as the following order by Fourth Army from January 1942 indicates:[6]
F) Giving orders
The immobility of the leaders and their staffs means that rapid decisions during the battle are rarely made and have an effect. The leaders of motorized units trained during the summer in rapid decision-making and the brief giving of commands have to relearn. It is necessary to think through all possibilities of the offensive action with imagination and to weigh up advantages and disadvantages. All leaders must be instructed in detail before the attack begins, if possible on the previous day, about the intended conduct of battle and the expected and possible combat crises. The leaders in charge must know what measures and actions are expected from them in each combat phase.
One important point to make here concerns the quality of the German officer and NCO corps. As previously stated, the German command system required a thoroughly trained and educated leadership to work smoothly. The homogeneity and quality of the German officer corps had decreased significantly in the rearmament period due to the need for thousands of new officers to staff the rapidly expanding armed forces. When the war began, the German army could field some 90,000 officers. Losses in the early campaigns were relatively high, but at the same time, the officer corps gained much combat experience and further time for training. Probably the high point of quality was achieved in the summer months of 1941, before the mass losses of officers and NCOs in the east again decreased the quality. Measures taken, such as field training for leaders, did not stop this trend, but considerably slowed it until summer 1944, when the German army began to collapse due to the Allied double strike in Normandy and Belarus. While this is a general observation, there were great differences between theatres and units, depending on combat intensity, periods of refreshment, and, of course, unit leadership interest in training and educating leaders.
The following document is a collection of guidelines for training based on combat experiences from mid-1942. While giving an idea about leadership training issues, it also reveals deficiencies in the German low-level leadership.[7]
4
Fernschreiben Chef des Generalstabes an die Herren Chefs der Generalstäbe der Heeresgruppen und Armeen, 6.1.42, BA-MA RH 20-16/80.
7
Stellvertretendes General-Kommando VII. Armeekorps/Ia/Id, Betr.: Ausbildungsanregungen nach Fronterfahrungen, 27.7.42, BA-MA RH 53-7/v 234b.