5. The Domino Effect
At the beginning of the second half of the 1950s, the upper leadership of the Reich realized that they faced a problem. The Fuehrer had directed that the peacetime Reichswehr be no more than ten percent of Germany's population, a figure which Luftwaffe and Reichsmarine had no problem meeting, but that the Reichsheer and Waffen-SS found made their continued expansion all but impossible. The total armed strength of the Reichswehr was roughly thirty million men in arms in all services, a figure made possible by the work of organizations like KdF and the Todt Bureau streamlining labor within the Reich. Even so, the mass of the Reichswehr was placing a strain on Germany's economy.
This economy was nearing the completion of an ambitious expansion similar to that of the 1930s, fully exploiting the newly settled eastern regions. However, the completion of the expansion itself was creating problems of employment. There was no clear solution to this problem, creating the recession of 1956. Unemployment, kept historically low by work programs dictated from Berlin, reached upwards of 10% as these programs were completed. The great shipyards at Kiel, Hamburg, and Bremen were currently idle, due to the Reichsmarine's current stasis and the dearth of trans-Atlantic travel.
Within the Reichswehr, this period of ennui was marked by the commissioning and completion of the Steiner Report, written by SS-Hauptgruppenfuehrer and Field Marshal Felix Steiner. The Steiner Report, commissioned by Reichsmarschall Hausser and written with the active cooperation of all of the Reichswehr's branches, took from 1954 to 1956 to complete. Its conclusions were, by branch:
1. The Luftwaffe was suffering a critical officer shortage; however, because there was no sign that the United States, China, or Japan had a jet air program, let alone a supersonic capability, it was likely that continuing with routine updating would maintain the Luftwaffe's primacy. The weakest links in the Luftwaffe were its cooperation with the Reichsmarine, which had in the early 1950s claimed control over all aircraft operating in a naval role, and the airborne units' transports.
2. The Reichsmarine, while vast and well-armed, was burdened with a great number of mid-1930s ships, especially in the carrier fleet. The
Bismarck-class battleships were more than capable of holding their own; the same could no longer be said for the
Hipper-class cruiser, the
Graf Zeppelin-class carrier, or the majority of the destroyer-frigate fleet. Steiner, with Ramcke, argued for the transformation of the
Zeppelin fleet into ships meant to support amphibious operations and the class's replacement in service with a new, updated carrier similar to the
Goering class.
3. The Reichsheer and Waffen-SS were equipped to fight the British campaign. After almost a decade, they had seen no substantial updates of equipment or training. Developments in rocketry and materials science had rendered much of the Reichsheer inventory obsolete, and the Standardpanzer design was starting to show its age rather badly. In response, Steiner argued for an across-the-board update of the Reichswehr's land forces, including both parachutists and marine troops, though giving priority to the armored and mechanized forces.
Figure 119: Paraguayan troops during Battle of Corrientes, February 1956
At the same time, a school of warfare inspired by the Afghanistan intervention and spearheaded by SS-Gruppenfuehrer Otto Skorzeny was developing. The so-called "Training Group South America" (
Lehrgruppe Südamerika - trans.) formed in mid-1955 to help train Argentinean and Uruguayan allies. It consisted of veterans of the Afghanistan conflict and contained some of the best-trained soldiers in the Reichswehr, led by Skorzeny. Skorzeny, unusually for a commander operating in the field, had orders from the Foreign Ministry, essentially giving him a free hand so long as the Americans were not provoked into an open war. It was the beginning of the "domino theory" period of relations between Germany and the United States.
In February 1956, therefore, the Argentinean military began a series of operations, starting with "Gabriela," the invasion of Paraguay. The goal of these operations was to shore up Argentine control of the south end of South America, from whence operations could be launched against the American-dominated north end of the continent when the inevitable conflict began. The Paraguayans were a simple matter, equipped and trained as they were primarily with American cast-offs from the 1930s. Skorzeny himself spent most of the war vacationing in Germany, though when he returned to Buenos Aires, he was presented with the first rifle captured at Corrientes - an 1891 Chilean Mauser.
German commitment to Argentina escalated steadily through 1956 - by mid-March, Luftwaffe Lieutenant-General Hans-Ulrich Rudel had arrived in Buenos Aires with a bomber wing, and the first German divisions (an SS marine corps and Ramcke's three provisional air-mobile marine divisions) were dispatched about the same time. By the end of March, 1956, seventy thousand German troops were on the ground in South America; by the end of May, it would be more than a hundred thousand as Skorzeny asked for, and got, a full-scale field command. The German commitment was deeper than just training or even troop deployment - the Reich began to sell its old Type IX U-Boat hulls to the Argentines in March as well, a way to strengthen its ally's interest in submarines while at the same time clearing the way for new construction at the great yards in northern Germany. Almost by accident, it seemed, an answer for the Steiner Report had been found.
Figure 120: A "Blitz" bomber during ferry operations to the Argentine Front
Rudel's air offensive in Paraguay was the first test of Germany's jet air force against a foreign force; because of this, Luftwaffe commanders ordered him into immediate action without any chance to recover. He was generally seen as an adequate officer, though not outstanding, and personally viewed the South American commitment as a chance to advance himself. As a result, his aircraft were pushed to their limits with constant operations. They were rewarded: after the collapse of Paraguay, debriefing interviews consistently emphasized how the Paraguayan army feared the jets that would seemingly appear from nowhere, against which they were powerless. The Reich's policy of using South America as an extended proving ground was working.
On March 13, 1956, the Argentine military occupied Asuncion and the Paraguayan government collapsed. It would be the first of several Argentine acquisitions in the 1950s, but the Fuehrer contented himself with a telegram of congratulations and a caution not to push the matter any further until German reinforcements could arrive - not that he was afraid the Argentines would lose without support, but because Germany's soldiers needed blooding again. Caudillo Carlos Alberto Pueyrredon, who knew quite well why he was Argentina's leader, quickly assented. The German buildup was not long in coming.
Figure 121: Military police of Skorzeny's airborne command, laying out the German compound outside Buenos Aires, April 1956
Skorzeny was one of the new "helicopter generals," a proponent of any tool that would allow his infantry to move faster than any enemy could expect. As a result, his operations in South America attracted a different school of commander from those found throughout much of the Reichswehr. They tended to be younger, men who had risen as far as they could in the peacetime military and who were generally unproven in combat - though they included some wartime stalwarts like Michael Wittmann, now an SS-Gruppenfuehrer in command of a helicopter-equipped division.
Thus, the fact that he had the equivalent of an army group at his disposal for operations in South America did not particularly engender confidence in Skorzeny's superiors. His subordinates and equipment were untested, made of raw divisions whose loss to the Reichswehr could be met with a shrug, aside from Rudel's air force, and they were hardly in danger from the operations planned. Skorzeny's plan, in broad strokes, was to unify the southern half of South America under Argentine leadership, then destabilize the governments to the north. Paraguay had been the first phase, but the Paraguayan military had been equipped to fight at the Marne, not on the modern battlefield. Chile's military was somewhat more respectable. In addition to their equipment - almost modern, by South American definitions - they were positioned along an excellent natural fortification line in the Andes Mountains, terrain particularly unsuited for helicopter operations. Chile would, therefore, be the great test of the Reich's new weapon.
Figure 122: Skorzeny conducting an informal inspection of his troops, unknown site, Andes frontier, 1956. Note the rank; Skorzeny typically pretended to be a mid-ranking officer to throw off opposition
Finally, in late June, 1956, Skorzeny felt ready, and ordered the invasion of Chile. Argentine troops were not notified of the order - Skorzeny had very little respect for the Argentine military which he was supposed to be training. "Whatever we don't finish with," Wittmann recalls him as saying, "the Buenos Aires polo league will deal with." The helicopters received their first test from June 20 to June 22, 1956, in the highlands above Puerto Aisen. In a bitter, windy cold, Skorzeny's troops engaged the Chilean defenders along the border, and in a period of two days, seven Chilean divisions disintegrated; only the regional headquarters was able to flee the German advance. To the north, the Argentine military broke through at Antofagasta at the same time, surprising Skorzeny with their performance.
Perhaps the weapon which received the most resounding praise was the jet bomber. Chile had no air force to speak of, so Lieutenant-General Rudel's main enemies were weather and terrain. The Arado bombers experienced minimal losses over the Andes, and Rudel himself was praised extensively both by Skorzeny and the Argentine military, leading to his promotion to General der Flieger on the 24th. Rudel himself found out about the promotion upon return from a raid on Chilean positions at Puerto Montt, where Skorzeny's troops were attempting to envelop the Chilean capital at Santiago. Rudel, a notorious teetotaller, celebrated by ordering the disbursement of one bottle of champagne to each of the bombers under his command - tucked into the payload, "so the Chilies could celebrate too," as one of his pilots later recalled.
Skorzeny's own promotion followed. Word reached him on the 27th, as his lead units secured Puerto Montt. He was the first to hold the rank of Obergruppenfuehrer und General der Jagdtruppen, a distinction that showed the difference between the new, lightly armed and highly mobile school of infantry warfare which he was developing and the older infantry tradition of the Reichsheer. The promotion immediately preceded the beginning of his advance on Santiago de Chile, in the hopes of ending the war. Unfortunately, Skorzeny's men were stretched to their limits, as were Wittmann and von Huenersdorff's divisions at the southern end of the line. By the end of June, 1956, it was obvious to all concerned that the Chilean offensive had ground to a halt. Equally obvious, to a broader world audience, was German involvement in the Andean campaign. The Fuehrer therefore authorized escalation - first in the form of Luftwaffe intervention, then ordering Field Marshal von Witzleben to the South American command. Von Witzleben had established a reputation as a mountain warfare expert in Scotland, and was well-known for his aggressive, hard-nosed approach to warfare. He was hardly one of the Fuehrer's favorite marshals, but was generally viewed as intensely competent and ideally suited to this mission. Upon publication of these orders, the politically-minded Field Marshal von Bock used his rank and prestige to steal a march on von Witzleben, boarding transports and speeding down the English Channel before von Witzleben was out of cantonments.
Von Huenersdorff and Wittmann fought a desperate winter defense of Puerto Aisen on Chile's west coast, a move which meant that when they landed, von Bock's mechanized troops would already be on the west side of the Andes range and would be within immediate contact range of the Chilean defenders. To their north, Skorzeny and his command dug in south of Santiago, holding Puerto Montt open for von Witzleben's arrival. The German infantry along the Chilean salient all prepared for a prolonged campaign. Only the Luftwaffe continued active offensive operations. The new air commander for South America was Field Marshal Kesselring, assisted by Lieutenant-General Wolfram von Richtofen, who was widely viewed as the ailing Sperrle's natural successor in the strategic bomber command.
Figure 123: City center of Antofagosta after Luftwaffe raid of July 4, 1956
Chile was, in fact, the first test of the strategic bomber forces. Under General von Richtofen, they began bombing Chile's industrialized north almost immediately after deployment. A 50% reduction in Chilean industrial production was reported after their first raids. Von Richtofen wrote to Berlin in frustration over the lack of targets: "I am bombing everywhere that my scouts spot a llama. I see no point in wasting munitions thus, and wish for more productive employment for my aircraft." To the south, Rudel continued his aerial harassment of Chilean forces, developing a technique called the "Rudelschlacht" - close contact between Skorzeny and Rudel allowed him to fly at exceptionally low altitudes to approach the battlefield, and to place his bombs and rockets precisely where he wanted them.
Figure 124: Mountain guns begin an artillery barrage during Skorzeny's second push into Santiago
Word took longer to reach Skorzeny than anticipated; he hated the thought of losing his autonomy to what he viewed as tradition-bound marshals loyal first to Berlin, second to their own soldiers. As a result, he gathered his commanders in mid-July to ask their opinions: could their units sustain an assault on Santiago? The answer was generally dubious, but favorable, and thus on July 10, he launched a broad, ad-hoc offensive against the city's defenses once more, catching the Chileans off-guard with the sudden thrust. There was no real sense of planning, and indeed no staff orders survive which indicate that anything more than a general order to draw grenades and advance wherever possible was given. Two days of grinding combat followed; Chilean defenders stood their ground bravely, even foolishly, in the face of Skorzeny's attacks, but finally they collapsed under the combined weight of the enemy to their front and the Luftwaffe above.
On July 21, 1956, General der Jagdtruppen Otto Skorzeny arrived in a small truck at the city center of Santiago de Chile. He immediately sent a message to Berlin, for forwarding to Bock and von Witzleben, that typified his attitude towards the existing military establishment: "
Dance card full, no room for old ladies." The marshals, furious though they were, saw little recourse but to turn back to the Dutch harbors from whence they had departed. Late in the day, the Argentine and Chilean governments came to an agreement - the two countries were to be permanently united.
Figure 124: South America after the Chilean War, 1956
As a result of the conflict in South America, relations between Germany and the United States began to disintegrate once more. President Eisenhower made the most cogent statement of the American view, which failed to take into account his own country's rampant interventionism in the region, at a press conference on August 15, 1956:
Finally, you have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the "falling domino" principle. You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences.
The German economy, meanwhile, was being slowly, painfully restarted. The Fuehrer authorized a series of massive construction projects to provide air and sea access to regions previously out of contact with the world, to extend the Reich's meteorology service throughout the occupied territories, and to complete those packets of Autobahn not yet completed. At the same time, the companies upon which the Reich's production rested went through a period of self-examination, led by efficiency experts at IG Farben and Siemens. By the end of 1956, it was confidently predicted that better than 10% time and personnel savings could be found in all aspects of Reich production. The shipyards, left idle with the Reichsmarine out of its growth phase, were instead tasked to build the world's greatest shipping fleet, and to build a coast guard to protect it. Finally, the engineers at Krupp of Essen were putting the final touches on an answer to the Steiner Report's concerns about the Reichsheer's armored component. Production and testing came to a sudden halt in late November when it was discovered that one of the Krupp engineers had been an American agent, and had deliberately sabotaged the armor thickness calculations. The resulting chill in German-American relations was exacerbated by the sudden, unexpected death of Henry Kaiser, Eisenhower's industrial advisor.
Figure 125: The final pre-production prototype of the PzKpfW-60 "Leopard"
All of this answered the Steiner Report and the general malaise of the German economy in early 1956 quite well, but it neglected the lessons learned in the Chilean war. This is not to say those lessons were universally neglected; quite the contrary, even during the war the Luftwaffe put considerable effort into beginning the modernization of its ground-attack forces. There is some evidence, albeit anecdotal, that General Rudel had already begun experimenting with ad-hoc terrain-following instrumentation, adapting the early-war radar beam guidance systems to his aircraft to facilitate the so-called "Rudelschlacht." Certainly the Luftwaffe put more immediate interest into the exploitation of Chile's lessons than the Reichsheer, which for the moment all but cashiered Skorzeny for stealing the marshals' glory in Santiago.
Skorzeny, with both bitterness and justification, accused the Reichsheer and Waffen-SS of preparing to fight the last war again. Despite the Fuehrer's preference for the unpredictable young man whose service had started in the Austrian SS, public insubordination of this scale was too much for Reichsmarschall Hausser. Only the intercession of Hauptgruppenfuehrer Dietrich of the Leibstandarte saved him from an honor court; Skorzeny instead found himself languishing as the commandant of the Sepp-Dietrich-Schule at Berlin-Lichterfelde. It was perhaps not the best appointment to dispose of an inconveniently outspoken commander; instead, most of the junior officers of the Waffen-SS throughout the 1960s bore Skorzeny's imprimatur.
Figure 126: The rebuilt Graf Zeppelin
as an amphibious assault ship, early 1960s
Ironically, given Doenitz's almost total disregard for the surface fleet, it was the Reichsmarine which absorbed the most from Chile. Ramcke perused the reports thoroughly and drew the conclusion that amphibious operations would benefit tremendously from the helicopter, and asked Admiral Doenitz for permission to use the old
Graf Zeppelin as a testing and development ship. Doenitz agreed readily enough, saying that it would be a torpedo target otherwise - it might as well be put to use. Ramcke began by converting the ship's flight deck, extending it and hardening it to accommodate vertical landings, and transforming much of its belowdeck space to accommodate a marine battalion. The project, undertaken in November of 1956, quickly attracted the attention of survivors of the "Dutch School" of the early 1950s, who like most of the surface proponents were currently out of favor. They saw in the new helicopter carrier concept a way to extend their own influence and assist in protecting the Reich's commercial traffic from Doenitz's pet submarines, and thus a momentary alliance between surface admirals and amphibious generals was born in the face of the submarine-minded Doenitz.
1956 was the first year in which the Reich faced a serious military challenge, and many of the men who faced it found themselves sidelined as 1957 began. In the United States, paranoia over the "Gray Peril" deepened, and when, on January 1, 1957, the Hohenzollern pretender Ludwig Ferdinand was arrested by the Gestapo for his continued virulent anti-Party positions, the Americans took note. The Fuehrer, old and frail though he was, would brook no challenges.
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Regarding the last paragraph, on January 1, '57, I got the "dissident minister" event for Wilhelm III. Problem is that he died in 1951. Louis Ferdinand was the next head of the Hohenzollerns. Given that spring break ends in a few days, I wonder if I'm going to make it to the '60s in a reasonable time. It's taking a week to play a year at Extremely Fast.
