recently begun uncomfortably to acknowledge, not of the Nazis, but of the army. Goebbels and Himmler were enthusiastic cheerleaders for exterminating Slavs, but had no major input to the decisions on Leningrad, which were the work of Hitler, Halder, Brauchitsch, Jodl and von Leeb. Though members of High Command began sharply to disagree with Hitler within weeks of the invasion of the Soviet Union, they did so only on narrow grounds of military expediency. Ethical considerations do not seem to have prompted a single senior officer to question a policy that directly led, not only foreseeably but deliberately, to the slow and painful death by starvation of about three-quarters of a million non-combatants, a large proportion of them women and children.
Nor was the army made fully to atone after the war. Jodl, signatory of the formal order to besiege Leningrad, went before the international tribunal at Nuremberg, was convicted of war crimes and hanged. Von Leeb, in contrast, got off extraordinarily lightly. Having retired pleading illness in December 1941, he was sentenced to a mere three yearsâ imprisonment at Nuremberg. His replacement as leader of Army Group North, Georg von Küchler, though sentenced to twenty years, was released on compassionate grounds after only eight. Oddest were the fates of Halder and Erich Hoepner, commander of Army Group Northâs Panzer Group Four. Hoepner, though a fanatical racist â praised by the SS for his âparticularly close and cordialâ cooperation in the murder of tens of thousands of Baltic Jews 29 â was persuaded by the prospect of defeat to join the July Plot to assassinate Hitler. When it failed he was arrested and executed, alongside the brave and decent von Stauffenberg and von Trott. Halder, though not involved in the plot, was imprisoned by Hitler in its wake, then freed by the Americans and spared prosecution at Nuremberg in exchange for giving evidence against his former colleagues. He went on to spend fourteen comfortable and respected years as head of the German section of the US Armyâs historical research unit, in which role he helped to establish the Cold War myth of the âclean Wehrmachtâ, ignorant of the Holocaust and bullied into war by a crazed dictator. In 1961, when the unit was wound up, President Kennedy awarded him the âMeritorious Civilian Serviceâ medal â the highest honour a non-American can earn in US government service. The editorâs foreword to the standard American translation of Halderâs diary, published in the late 1980s, concludes with the remarkable words âHe was a distinguished soldierâ. 30
Â
* Interviewed after the war, General Blumentritt recalled that he and his colleagues were gripped by the French general Armand de Caulaincourtâs account of 1812: âI can still see von Kluge trudging through the mud from his sleeping-quarters to his office, and standing in front of the map with Caulaincourtâs book in his hand.â
9
Falling Down the Funnel
In September still, golden days had alternated with autumn gales. In October the last of the summer came to an end. The first snow fell, unusually early, on the 15th, and ice, grey-white under the granite embankments and darkly transparent at its outer perimeter, began to creep across the canals. 1 Georgi Knyazev, wheeling himself along the Vasilyevsky Island embankment each morning, saw the military bustle that had invaded his ‘small radius’ fade away. The files of marching sailors, helmets strapped to their knapsacks, disappeared; so did the speeding, mud-spattered army lorries and the soldiers camped out with their horses on the yellowing grass of Rumyantsev Square. Shelling had ravelled the overhead tram wires along the Nicholas Bridge, and a warship blocked his view of the Senate House, her three funnels painted winter-camouflage white. Next to the still unsandbagged Luxor sphinxes a truck stood on chocks, two
Nor was the army made fully to atone after the war. Jodl, signatory of the formal order to besiege Leningrad, went before the international tribunal at Nuremberg, was convicted of war crimes and hanged. Von Leeb, in contrast, got off extraordinarily lightly. Having retired pleading illness in December 1941, he was sentenced to a mere three yearsâ imprisonment at Nuremberg. His replacement as leader of Army Group North, Georg von Küchler, though sentenced to twenty years, was released on compassionate grounds after only eight. Oddest were the fates of Halder and Erich Hoepner, commander of Army Group Northâs Panzer Group Four. Hoepner, though a fanatical racist â praised by the SS for his âparticularly close and cordialâ cooperation in the murder of tens of thousands of Baltic Jews 29 â was persuaded by the prospect of defeat to join the July Plot to assassinate Hitler. When it failed he was arrested and executed, alongside the brave and decent von Stauffenberg and von Trott. Halder, though not involved in the plot, was imprisoned by Hitler in its wake, then freed by the Americans and spared prosecution at Nuremberg in exchange for giving evidence against his former colleagues. He went on to spend fourteen comfortable and respected years as head of the German section of the US Armyâs historical research unit, in which role he helped to establish the Cold War myth of the âclean Wehrmachtâ, ignorant of the Holocaust and bullied into war by a crazed dictator. In 1961, when the unit was wound up, President Kennedy awarded him the âMeritorious Civilian Serviceâ medal â the highest honour a non-American can earn in US government service. The editorâs foreword to the standard American translation of Halderâs diary, published in the late 1980s, concludes with the remarkable words âHe was a distinguished soldierâ. 30
Â
* Interviewed after the war, General Blumentritt recalled that he and his colleagues were gripped by the French general Armand de Caulaincourtâs account of 1812: âI can still see von Kluge trudging through the mud from his sleeping-quarters to his office, and standing in front of the map with Caulaincourtâs book in his hand.â
9
Falling Down the Funnel
In September still, golden days had alternated with autumn gales. In October the last of the summer came to an end. The first snow fell, unusually early, on the 15th, and ice, grey-white under the granite embankments and darkly transparent at its outer perimeter, began to creep across the canals. 1 Georgi Knyazev, wheeling himself along the Vasilyevsky Island embankment each morning, saw the military bustle that had invaded his ‘small radius’ fade away. The files of marching sailors, helmets strapped to their knapsacks, disappeared; so did the speeding, mud-spattered army lorries and the soldiers camped out with their horses on the yellowing grass of Rumyantsev Square. Shelling had ravelled the overhead tram wires along the Nicholas Bridge, and a warship blocked his view of the Senate House, her three funnels painted winter-camouflage white. Next to the still unsandbagged Luxor sphinxes a truck stood on chocks, two
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