Gerd von Rundstedt Biography Quotes 5 Report mistakes

Early Life and Entry into the Army
Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt was born on 12 December 1875 in Aschersleben in the Prussian Province of Saxony. He came from the traditional Prussian officer class and followed the expected path into cadet schools and the peacetime Prussian Army. Commissioned in the 1890s as an infantry officer, he progressed steadily through company and staff assignments. His measured style, attention to discipline, and command of staff work brought him into the General Staff, the crucible in which many of the German Army's senior leaders of the twentieth century were formed.

World War I
During the First World War he served primarily on the Western Front in staff roles and as a field officer. The experience entrenched the habits that would mark his career: methodical planning, loyalty to the chain of command, and a preference for operational maneuver over frontal attrition. He emerged from the war with a solid reputation but without the flamboyant public profile of some contemporaries. Like many officers of his generation, he accepted the postwar Reichswehr's constraints and focused on preserving professional standards within a shrunken army.

Interwar Years
Rundstedt remained in the Reichswehr throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, rotating through command and staff positions under leaders such as Hans von Seeckt and later Werner von Blomberg and Walther von Brauchitsch. He was regarded as politically conservative and monarchist in outlook, skeptical of party politics, and careful to keep the officer corps as apolitical as circumstances allowed. As the army expanded after 1933, he rose to senior command. Retired briefly in 1938 amid reorganizations and generational change following the Blomberg-Fritsch affair, he was recalled to active duty on the eve of war.

Campaigns in Poland and France
In September 1939 Rundstedt commanded Army Group South in the invasion of Poland. Working with an able chief of staff, Erich von Manstein, and alongside Fedor von Bock's Army Group North, he directed rapid envelopments that unhinged Polish defenses. Subordinate army commanders under him included Johannes Blaskowitz, Walter von Reichenau, and Wilhelm List. The campaign burnished his standing as a calm, coordinating figure at the operational level.

In 1940 he led Army Group A in the campaign against France and the Low Countries. The thrust through the Ardennes, realized by Ewald von Kleist's panzer group and executed by commanders such as Heinz Guderian and Erwin Rommel, achieved the decisive breakthrough at Sedan and the drive to the Channel. While the concept had been debated at the highest levels, including with Franz Halder at the Army High Command, Rundstedt managed the vast, fast-moving operation. After victory he was promoted to field marshal on 19 July 1940, one of several senior commanders elevated by Adolf Hitler.

Operation Barbarossa and the Eastern Front
In June 1941 Rundstedt commanded Army Group South in the invasion of the Soviet Union. His formation included Reichenau's 6th Army, Kleist's 1st Panzer Group, and the 11th Army, later led by Manstein. Army Group South executed major encirclements, most notably at Kiev in September 1941, in coordination with elements of Army Group Center. The campaign, however, was marked by extreme brutality. The Commissar Order was in force, and the murder of civilians and Jews by SS Einsatzgruppen, with logistical and security support from army units in the rear, unfolded across his area of operations. Reichenau's notorious "severity" directive circulated within Army Group South. Rundstedt's headquarters transmitted orders and maintained cooperation with security forces; debates about his precise responsibility continue, but his command environment facilitated these crimes.

As the Wehrmacht's advance stretched and winter approached, Soviet counterattacks and logistical strain grew severe. Rundstedt authorized a withdrawal from the Rostov area to more defensible lines on the Mius River in late 1941, clashing with Hitler's "no retreat" demands. On 1 December 1941 he was relieved of command and replaced by Reichenau.

Commander in the West
Recalled in March 1942, he became Commander-in-Chief West (Oberbefehlshaber West), responsible for the defense of occupied France, Belgium, and the Low Countries. In this role he coordinated with Alfred Jodl and Wilhelm Keitel at the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht and with the Luftwaffe's Hugo Sperrle. He focused on building fortifications, later termed the Atlantic Wall, and husbanding mobile reserves. He and Erwin Rommel, who commanded Army Group B in 1944, engaged in a sustained debate over defensive doctrine: Rommel argued for confronting Allied landings at the water's edge with dense forward defenses and mines, while Rundstedt preferred holding panzer reserves back for a concentrated counterstroke once the main Allied effort was known. Strategic disagreements were compounded by constant interference from Hitler.

Normandy and Dismissal
When the Allies landed in Normandy on 6 June 1944, ambiguity over authority for releasing armored reserves hobbled the German response. Rundstedt struggled to reconcile conflicting directives from Berlin with the realities faced by Rommel and Panzer Group West. After the Allied breakout from Saint-Lô (Operation Cobra) and the collapse of the front in July, he urged withdrawal behind the Seine to avoid encirclement. In early July 1944 Hitler dismissed him and installed Guenther von Kluge as both OB West and commander of Army Group B, while Walter Model soon entered the scene to stabilize the front amid suspicion after the 20 July plot.

Return, Ardennes, and Final Relief
Rundstedt was reappointed OB West in September 1944, with Model commanding Army Group B under him. As the Western Front reeled from setbacks in France and the Low Countries, Hitler pushed for a bold counteroffensive in the Ardennes. Rundstedt and many professionals doubted the feasibility of the grand plan (Wacht am Rhein) and favored more limited operations, but the offensive proceeded in December 1944 with Josef Dietrich's 6th Panzer Army and Hasso von Manteuffel's 5th Panzer Army leading the effort under Model's operational control. Initial gains faded against Allied resistance and logistical constraints. In March 1945, after further defeats and mounting Allied advances across the Rhine, Rundstedt was relieved again and replaced by Albert Kesselring.

Captivity, Postwar Status, and Death
Captured by British forces in May 1945, Rundstedt was held in custody and later appeared as a witness at postwar proceedings, including sessions related to the Nuremberg trials of senior military leaders. Allied authorities considered charges concerning the conduct of the war in the East and the West, particularly the treatment of civilians and prisoners and the implementation of criminal orders, but no trial was ultimately pursued against him. Advanced age and poor health weighed heavily in these decisions. He was released from custody in 1949. Rundstedt died on 24 February 1953 in Hannover.

Assessment and Legacy
Rundstedt embodied the traditions of the old Prussian officer corps: formal, disciplined, and focused on operational command rather than politics. He earned a reputation as a capable army group commander in Poland and France and as a stabilizing, if cautious, senior leader in the West during 1942, 44. His relationships with key figures, Hitler, Brauchitsch, Halder, Manstein, Guderian, Kleist, Rommel, Kluge, Model, Keitel, and Jodl, trace the arc of command and contention within the German high command. At the same time, his tenure on the Eastern Front and his role as OB West implicate him in a system that committed grave crimes. He did not challenge criminal directives at a strategic level and tolerated cooperation with murderous security organs in his areas of command. Historians therefore assess him as a skilled practitioner of operational warfare whose adherence to obedience and professional detachment, in the service of a criminal regime, undercut claims to an apolitical or purely military legacy.

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