World renowned historian David Stone gives his thoughts on one of our recent titles Kleinkrieg.
A REVIEW OF KLEINKRIEG
THE GERMAN EXPERIENCE WITH GUERILLA WARFARE, FROM CLAUSEWITZ TO HITLER
by Charles D. Melson,
including a translation of the 1935 work by Arthur Ehrhardt
In this new work Kleinkrieg Charles Melson has carried out a particularly valuable service for students of irregular or guerilla operations and war fighting by providing and placing in their historical and modern context English language translations of two key German documents, thereby enabling non-German speakers to access significant insights into the German thinking on how to counter the guerilla or partisan threat in areas occupied by its forces. He has also amplified both these documents with his own analysis of specific aspects of German counter partisan operations in World War 2. Finally, he sets out his view of the stage that German military doctrine for counter insurgency (COIN) operations has reached today.
Although relatively short in length, Kleinkrieg (literally ‘small wars’) is a several faceted compendium of documents focused upon the German attitude and approach to counter guerilla or COIN warfare. The level of detail it includes is indicative of its origins as a practical training and study aid for US military personnel involved in planning, conducting or countering COIN operations today. However, for the historian it also provides a valuable window into the German doctrinal thinking and way of conducting operations in a combat environment in which the German army has never been entirely comfortable ever since the war against France 1870-71. It was at that time that the German General Staff and its forces regarded as irregular and illegal the activities of the French francs-tireurs against the victorious Prussian army and its other German allies during the weeks and months after the decisive defeat of France in the field. This in turn gave rise to indignation, considerable anger and a degree of confusion on the part of a German military heritage imbued with adherence to the established rules and laws of war and a tradition of honourable conduct between opposing conventional military forces. It also paved the way for the officially sanctioned use of punitive action and reprisals by German forces against such irregular groups of combatants.
A central element of Charles Melson’s work is a translation of a 1935 historical survey and academic analysis by Arthur Erhardt of guerilla campaigns during the 19th and first three decades of the 20th Century. This dissertation first of all establishes the nature and effectiveness or otherwise of a wide range of past guerilla campaigns, including those by the Spanish and later the Germans against Napoleon’s invading or occupying armies; by the French and Garibaldi’s partisans against the Prussian and other German forces 1870-71; by and between the Serbs, Bulgarians, Albanians, Greeks and against the Turkish, Austrian or Austro-Hungarian authorities in the early 20th Century; in Belgium in 1914, and finally during the campaign between the Red and White forces in Russia from 1917 – with prescient emphasis upon the organization and operations of the communist-inspired Red partisans and the successes that they enjoyed. Erhardt concludes with a section on lessons learnt, with a look into the likely nature of such conflicts in a future war. This section reveals little that will surprise professional military operators, although the historian might well wonder that Erhardt’s conclusions apparently achieved less prominence than they deserved both in the German General Staff and in the wider Wehrmacht, certainly when planning and prosecuting Operation BARBAROSSA in 1941 and the subsequent campaign within Russia. Indeed, the fact that Erhardt was transferred from the Abwehr (Wehrmacht intelligence service) to the Waffen-SS in 1942, when he was promoted from army captain to SS-Sturmbannführer (major) and became the counter guerilla expert for Hitler’s Führerhauptquartier and for Heinrich Himmler’s RSHA headquarters, should arguably have guaranteed him much greater influence. However, as a member of the Waffen-SS his views, motives and authority would inevitably have been viewed with suspicion by the non-SS German Army General Staff. Similarly, when Erhardt was tasked late in the war to develop a German resistance or partisan movement to counter the Anglo-US invasion and occupation forces, it was much too late for such a movement – in part designated as the Werewolves – to be raised, organized and trained. In addition, the informed reader will in any case identify various inferences from Erhardt’s text which betray a long standing distaste within the German armed forces (arguably apart from the Waffen-SS, which was of course not a part of the Wehrmacht) for the nature and implications of fighting what was in the 1940s still regarded by many Germans – but especially army officers – as an irregular, disreputable or dishonourable form of warfare.
Nevertheless, the second core element of Melson’s work, which is a translation of the German Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) 1944 doctrinal manual for the conduct of counter guerilla operations, does show that by that stage (albeit some three or four years too late!) the General Staff well understood the way in which such a threat needed to be anticipated and countered, and a great deal of the material in this document will be readily recognized by members of today’s armed forces, especially those involved with strategic and operational planning, force development and Special Forces, Psychological Operations and Civil Affairs. For the student of German military history in World War 2 this comprehensive 1944 document sets out in considerable detail all aspects of German military doctrine to deal with the guerilla or partisan threat at the tactical and operational levels and it is both a compelling and in places revelatory read. However, the informed historian will be struck by how far German military action on the ground – notably in the Soviet Union – frequently strayed from the principles set out in this OKW document, in particular the need to engage positively with the indigenous population (although the Nazi ideological and political agendas always mitigated against this). The greatest potential of this OKW document could have been in supporting planning for the attack against Russia before June 1941, but by the time that it was promulgated in 1944 the war was all but lost, with German control of its occupied territories fast deteriorating and not able to be reclaimed. At the same time, the skills and drills set out in the OKW document or doctrinal manual could not be mapped on to what was hardly even an embryo Werewolf resistance movement in Germany itself.
My only criticism of this work is that the very clear line drawings and diagrams that directly support the OKW text are distributed throughout the book rather than supporting just that part of the book dealing with the OKW doctrine. These illustrations therefore appear somewhat randomly on pages within Erhardt’s text but bear no relevance to that text. Similarly, the several fairly poor quality monochrome photographs which appear at various points in the book not only lack any descriptive captions but also add little or nothing to an otherwise sound and thought provoking work.
Next, between Erhardt’s dissertation and the OKW document is a section by Melson bridging the transition from Erhardt’s work to the OKW’s more pragmatic and practical doctrine. In this short section Melson provides a very sound and readable overview of the German security structure and associated army and Waffen-SS organizations in the early 1940s through 1944. This incisive description of aspects of German COIN theory and its application in Yugoslavia, the Balkans and Russia highlights the moral dilemma and operational imperatives faced by the Army General Staff in particular. Hitler directed that ‘Anything which assists in the annihilation of the guerillas will be considered right and conversely anything which does not contribute to the annihilation of the guerillas will be considered wrong’ and ‘any method is right which leads to success’, while many in the army believed that the brutalities and reprisals that this policy engendered and condoned ran contrary to its traditional sense of honour and military heritage. Accordingly, an operational split in security responsibilities was established between the Wehrmacht and the SS and police units, with the Wehrmacht troops generally responsible for security in the front-line areas while the SS and its special and police units became responsible for the rear areas. There, the actions of the SS were routinely robust, often extreme and took place alongside those of the SS-Einsatzkommandos tasked with furthering the Nazi genocide against the Jewish population in Russia. At the same time, the Waffen-SS assumed a leading role in major counter partisan operations, such as the encirclement of Tito’s forces in Bosnia during January to March 1943 (Operation WHITE), which is described in some detail by Melson. Although this operation pre-dated promulgation of the OKW document, parts of the latter clearly reflect the sort of tactics already in use by Waffen-SS divisions such as the 7th SS-Mountain Division ‘Prinz Eugen’ (created on 1 March 1942 specifically for counter partisan operations) and their application in the field.
In the last section of his work Melson takes a look at the German approach to COIN today. He identifies – by implication – an ongoing inability of the Bundeswehr to come fully to terms with this form of warfare, despite a wealth of experience gained in the Balkans and on the Eastern Front from 1941. Certainly during the post-1945 era this subject has been addressed fairly exhaustively, although Germany’s initial solution was to follow the approach taken by its NATO allies, specifically the US forces. However, the Bundeswehr’s involvement in Afghanistan inevitably concentrated military minds on the subject, although the resulting doctrine was apparently based as much upon social science theories as upon operational experience. Overall, the long standing unease of the German military with COIN operations appears still to be influenced subliminally by the long-ago outrage of the General Staff over the ongoing attacks mounted by the French francs-tireurs in 1870-71 and by a residual guilt by association with the atrocities committed by some German units in the occupied territories in 1939-45. But, more significantly, in modern times German military doctrine has become less clear as it tries to take full account of the ever more complicated social, legal and political-strategic international environment which exists today, with the sort of asymmetric and unpredictable conflicts without borders or legal or humanitarian constraints that blight parts of the modern world.
In summary, Kleinkrieg is clearly targeted at a fairly specialist reader, whether military professional, historian or student. Nevertheless, it contains a wealth of informative detail in a readable form and the fact that it pulls together several core strands and assessments of the German approach to COIN operations within one relatively succinct book is admirable. Accordingly, this work deserves to find a place on the bookshelf of any student of German military history, but especially that of anyone seeking to understand the particular issues and imperatives that have influenced the development of the German army and its doctrine for countering guerillas, partisans and irregular forces ever since 1871.
http://www.casematepublishing.co.uk/index.php/kleinkrieg.html
David Stone
(Author of ‘First Reich’ (2002), Fighting for the Fatherland (2006), Hitler’s Army 1939-1945 (2009), Twilight of the Gods (2011), The Kaiser’s Army 1914-1918 (2015))
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