On 17 February 1940 in Berlin there occurred a simple, unassuming event that changed the course of world history. Manstein journeyed to the capital city of the Third Reich to breakfast with Adolf Hitler. That day would turn out to be extremely auspicious for both: the outcome of their meeting would help shape the German conduct of the war in the West. If Hitler accepted Manstein’s novel plan of attack, the fate of France, Belgium and Holland was surely sealed. Yet as Manstein strode up the wide entrance steps from the Vossstrasse and entered Hitler’s extravagantly imposing new Chancellery, designed by Albert Speer, it must have been a bittersweet moment. Damned by his critics within OKH, the Army High Command, this was Manstein’s golden opportunity to advance his personal point of view directly with the Fuhrer. It was the painful experience of most German senior officers to be so enthralled by Hitler that they would often fluff their lines and fail to press home their case. Manstein, never one to suppress a personal opinion based on professional insight, was determined to speak up. He was to do so here and on many subsequent occasions with Hitler, particularly during a later period of the war when serving as an army group commander on the Eastern Front (1942–44).
Manstein had been informed on 27 January that he would shortly assume command of XXXVIII Army Corps in Stettin, 200 kilometres north-east of Berlin. This move amounted to dismissal from his post as chief of staff of Army Group A, with its headquarters in Koblenz. Manstein had departed the ancient Rhine city on 9 February for a period of leave at home in Liegnitz pending his assumption of corps command. In most armies, a transfer from a staff to a senior command function would be extremely welcome to any rightfully ambitious officer with designs on the highest ranks. But Manstein was a product of the Prussian general staff system in which a ‘chief’ had the authority and duty to originate and direct the planning in his own right, as well as on behalf of his commander. Being chief of staff of a group of armies poised to mount the most powerful offensive of the war to date was indeed no ordinary staff position. And Manstein, as we shall see, was no ordinary soldier.
Manstein’s determined efforts to secure the high command’s agreement to his extraordinary sickle-cut (Sichelschnitt) plan incurred the displeasure of both of the commander-in-chief, Colonel General Walther von Brauchitsch and Colonel General Franz Halder, the German Army Chief of the General Staff. Although he desired a field command, in many respects Manstein had wished to remain in Koblenz under Colonel General Gerd von Rundstedt, the commander of Army Group A. This happy partnership of arms had already proved itself in the Polish campaign: an apparently ideal combination of a relaxed ‘handsoff’ commander with an energetic and highly competent chief of staff. Rundstedt, in a similar manner to Field Marshal Harold Alexander, relieved the tedium of high command with a passion for reading crime novels. In so doing they amused their more than competent staffs by trying to disguise their innocent distractions.
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