Book Review - Hitler as Military Commander by John Strawson

 Hitler as Military Commander by John Strawson

London: Sphere Books Limited, 1973 (first published 1971)    ISBN 0722182090

John Strawson was a retired British General by the time he came to write this book, which looks specifically at Hitler's ability as a commander of armed forces, which he was over every battleground during World War Two.

Strawson divides his book into two sections; the period of the War when Hitler was making the geopolitical and military running and other countries were reacting to his moves, and the latter period of the War when he was reduced to himself reacting to the decisions and actions of the Allied powers.

Over the course of his narrative, Strawson makes a case that while Hitler had a strong geopolitical sense, and grasped how modern weaponry and combined-arms operations could change the way war could be fought, he had no real grasp of how individual armies should be manoeuvred and used tactically or even strategically.

It was the Battle of France that, despite the German success, is the first illustration of these fundamental flaws within Hitler. He quickly grasped the way that a combined arms attack could quickly dislocate and destroy the French position and lead to disarray, with a bolder vision than that held by his General Staff. The absolute success of the attack on France fed Hitler's massive ego, and led him to believe that not only was he a better strategist than his Generals, but also superior when it came to tactics.

However, it was precisely at the level of army tactics that Hitler let down his armed forces. As Strawson writes "...in spite of being a gambler [Hitler] was unwilling to stake all on a winning number." As evidence of this view Strawson puts forward several examples, including Hitler's failure at Dunkirk, and his failure to adequately support the Afrika Korps until it was too late to make a decisive difference.

The most interesting part of the book for me was Strawson's writing on the Mediterranean Theatre, explaining that far from being a sideshow, if Hitler had fully understood Grand Strategy he would have grasped that: a) it was important to keep the Allies out of the basin as that secured his Southern flank (the Balkans, Italy, Greece, Türkiye) and b) that by pushing the British out of Egypt (eminently possible if Rommel had been supported in an adequate and timely manner) he could have threatened Ukraine and the Caucuses oil fields far more effectively and changed his Russian campaign.

That he didn't do these things comes down fundamentally to the fact that Hitler lacked the imagination to create dynamic strategy. All he could see is the dreams of his youth, and was unable to change as the situation of the War developed. He was unable to see the openings that his gambles had created, and unable to take advantage of them.

His lack of experience in tactics of deploying armies (as opposed to Companies or Platoons, which he also did) and his refusal to listen to those that did have experience led to the suicidal attacks and last-man defences that did so much to destroy the Wehrmacht as a fighting force as the War progressed.

Strawson's book is well-argued, but written in a somewhat pedestrian manner. There is a lot of explicatory material that - while it might be necessary for those unschooled in this subject - can bog down the reader. Of interest to arm-chair strategists only methinks.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell