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The Enigma of General Blaskowitz

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Colonel-General Johannes Blaskowitz was a splendid soldier, a patriot, and a devout Christian. He was, unfortunately, in the employ of criminals. His protests of the atrocities in occupied Poland earned Hitler's enduring hatred, but the old soldier's professional skills were called upon repeatedly nonetheless. He never failed to perform superbly and humanely in the most adverse circumstances, for example saving the bulk of German forces in the retreat from southern France. His reward was his death in Allied confinement, possibly at the hands of the S.S.
His story is well told in this thoroughly researched and admirably written account, with photos, source notes, bibliography, and index. The maps are rudimentary but adequate for the casual reader.

(The "score" rating is an ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books.)

This is a book of history and not a mystery novel, so I am going to address the enigma alluded to in the title explicitly. If that would make you unhappy, please do not read further.

Colonel-General Blaskowitz had the distinction of being the only senior German commander to protest repeatedly, vociferously, and in writing the atrocities committed by German SS, SD, and other "police" forces against Poles and Polish Jews during the Second World War. As Giziowski presents him, the colonel general was a patriot, a dedicated officer, but also a sincere Christian who felt that his duty was to speak the truth, and condemn evil. At one point, Blaskowitz obtained permission in writing from the German Army Chief of Staff to stop the atrocities "with force of arms, if necessary". (This order was hastily rescinded lest open warfare break out between the Wehrmacht and the SS in occupied Poland.) Blaskowitz and his staff interviewed witnesses, obtained documentation--including numerous photographs--and sent copies to to anyone in the German Army high command who would look at them. These documents were circulated widely among senior German generals by those officers who opposed Hitler and the Nazis (e.g. the resistance group around then-Colonel Oster in the Abwehr). Blaskowitz's charges were even reported (and associated with his name) by the British and American press.

In the end, Blaskowitz succeeded only in raising a great fuss--and getting himself relieved of command, and forever denied promotion to Field Marshal. In fact, he was relieved of command at least 4 times, then recalled, for he was simply too good a general to leave idle when Germany needed every good commander it could get. Unfortunately, Blaskowitz's unpopularity with Hitler and Himmler assured that he would only get assignments that could yield no glory--it was inevitably Blaskowitz's task to retrieve situations that had already deteriorated far beyond any possibility of success. Thus, the colonel general became something of an expert in conducting retreats under the most difficult imaginable circumstances.

It should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the absurdities of history that Blaskowitz would be indicted by the Americans as a war criminal. He was to be tried with other General Staff officers on charges that included the familiar "conspiracy against the peace" charges (i.e., doing his job). However, he failed to appear at that trial because he fell to his death down a Nuremberg prison stairwell on the day it was to begin.

Though it actually takes up only a small part of the book, Blaskowitz's death is the "enigma" to which the title refers. The official account calls this death a suicide: Blaskowitz broke away from a group of prisoners, climbed over a wire fence and jumped to his death before his hapless guards could prevent it. Giziowski is skeptical of the official story, and does point out some suspicious incongruities in that account.

The author supposes that it was very unlikely that an obviously innocent man of strong Christian convictions would kill himself before he went to trial. The accepted motive for Blaskowitz's suicide is that he broke as a result of his long imprisonment and humiliation (he died in February, 1948), and that he acted on a sudden impulse. Giziowski thinks it more likely that the colonel-general was murdered--and he provides a compelling motive why his former comrades-in-arms would want him dead. For there was another charge faced by all the accused: of having known about the wartime atrocities, and having done nothing to prevent them. Blaskowitz had an excellent defense to this charge: he had clearly done all he could do to prevent these crimes. However, in presenting this defense, Blaskowitz would also gravely implicate his co-defendants. If the Blaskowitz memoranda were introduced as evidence, then it would also be plain that the other accused had all either seen these materials themselves, or at least heard about the allegations they contained. It would be proven that they did indeed know.

Giziowski is to be congratulated on this piece of deduction: there was a good reason for the former generals to want Blaskowitz dead. What the author fails to see, however, is that the very same reason also provides a compelling rationale for arguing that Blaskowitz killed himself. Among the characteristics of this complex man was a complete dedication to the German Army--and to the brotherhood of officers that led it until the end. Blaskowitz had an acute mind, and surely understood his situation perfectly. He could defend himself at the trial with the truth, but only at the expense of condemning men he deeply respected and regarded as his brothers. Blaskowitz had a choice between self-preservation and betrayal of others whom he felt duty-bound to preserve. I believe that he chose to take himself out of the picture.

I feel that my interpretation is consistent with the portrait of Blaskowitz's character that Giziowski presents--one of a profoundly honest, upright, and Christian man, who was also a German patriot and knew no other life than the one for which he was trained and uniquely fitted: that of a Prussian officer. Nor should Blaskowitz's suicide be seen as a repudiation of his earlier efforts to save the oppressed peoples of Poland. Those victims had already perished; his choice was to regard his life as having little worth, in comparison to upholding a tradition that, perhaps, he was the last man to regard as sacred.

"Hans" Blaskowitz was descended from a family of recently-Germanized Slovenians that had settled in East Prussia. (p. 18). The enigmas surrounding him include the motive behind his vocal professed opposition to German crimes against Polish civilians (moral or utilitarian?) and the nature of his sudden death in 1948 at his war crimes trial (accident? suicide? murder of an inconvenient witness?).

The 1939 German-Soviet conquest of Poland, led by Blaskowitz, is described in detail, especially the Battle at Kutno (Bzura). Polish troop movements, conducted at night, successfully evaded Luftwaffe surveillance. (pp. 129-130). Gen. Kutrzeba's forces caught the Germans by surprise, and, for a few days, were successful in this first anti-German counteroffensive of WWII, until the German forces re-asserted their extreme asymmetry in firepower and speed. Blaskowitz (p. 138) noted that the battle (Sept. 9-19) would've lasted at least two weeks longer had the Poles possessed even one-third the tanks that the Germans had.

As the occupation began, Helmut Stieff wrote: "The things that I have seen done by Germans to the Polish are so incredible that I cannot call these people anything but evil and inhuman. Germany does not deserve to be called by its name. Germans have begun to be sub-human. I am ashamed to belong to the German race." (p. 164). Himmler wanted to exterminate the Poles. (p. 212).

The modern Polonophobic notion that Poles were one in spirit (if not action) with the Nazis against the Jews is not supported by Blaskowitz. He wrote: "The acts of violence against the Jews, which are enacted in public, do not only provoke the most profound disgust in the religious Poles, but also a pity just as great for the Jewish population, towards which the Poles hitherto showed a more or less hostile attitude." (p. 490).

Holocaust-uniqueness proponents disingenuously belittle the 3 million German-murdered Poles as "only" 10% of the Polish population. In actuality, the Germans were constrained against a more comprehensive wartime genocide of the Poles by their need for a stable conquered Poland to exploit, and realization that, unlike the Jews, the Poles would fight fiercely any attempt to exterminate them, with unacceptable costs to wartime Germany. Blaskowitz comments: "The idea that the Polish people can be intimidated and kept down by terror will certainly prove to be wrong. The capacity for endurance which this nation commands is much too great...The older Polish generation knows from its own experience very well all the tried dodges of a skillful conspiracy, which have been applied during (a) hundred years of struggle. It will pass this knowledge on to the next generation, making it an opponent to be taken particularly seriously. The opinion, frequently expressed, that a small Polish revolt would be quite desirable, as it would furnish an opportunity of decimating the Poles on a large scale, can only be considered very irresponsibly. It can be proved that quantities of arms and ammunition are hidden in the country, so that a subversive movement would certainly involve the loss of much German blood. Apart from that it must be feared that reinforcements from the West would be required to subdue such a revolt, reinforcements which it might be very difficult to dispense with. There can be no doubt that these activities [atrocities] endanger the military security and the economic exploitation of the East in an irresponsible manner, and to no purpose whatsoever." (pp. 492-492).