ISBN 0-275-97715-3
180 pages

Preface; Introduction; Acknowledgements; maps; tables; Bibliography; Index

   The task of finding a suitable moniker for a new book grows no easier. Walter Dunn's latest has a catchy title, but the book doesn't really ask or answer any deep questions about the heroism or treason of the July 20th conspirators. In fact, it has very little to say about the conspirators, the assassination attempt, or the botched coup. For example, the book mentions Claus von Stauffenberg not at all. Instead, Heroes or Traitors focuses exclusively on the overall functioning of the Replacement Army and the way it was used in an effort to provide units to support the coup, to the detriment of the field army fighting the Allies at the front. The author sums up his case in a few paragraphs in the Introduction, and the remainder of the book provides a fuller, sometimes repetitious explanation of the same arguments.

   The Replacement Army in the spring of 1944 delayed the formation of new divisions that Hitler certainly would have promptly sent to the front. Instead, it concealed about 600,000 men in a variety of noncombat units, including Schatten (shadow) divisions formed to rebuild battle-worn divisions in the future.
   The lack of 600,000 men on the western and eastern fronts played a significant role in the disasters of June and July 1944. Had these men been available, the sixty new German infantry divisions that could have been formed between January and April 1944 would have made a difference. Instead, in the five months from February to June 1944 the Replacement Army created only four Schatten divisions and five occupation divisions.
   After the coup failed to kill Hitler and the plotters were eliminated from their command positions, a massive number of new divisions were created in a few short months from the ample supply of manpower previously held back. In late July and August, with Hitler back in control, the Replacement Army created forty-eight infantry divisions and nine Schatten divisions in six weeks. The culmination of this rebuilding effort was the assembly of two panzer armies in the Ardennes that dealt the Americans a stunning blow in December 1944.
   Not only did the Replacement Army fail to form new divisions prior to June 1944, it also failed to provide individual replacements for divisions in combat once the heavy fighting commenced in June 1944. The Replacement Army delayed the dispatch of urgently needed reinforcements to both the eastern and western fronts. Only 10,000 replacements were sent to Normandy in the first six weeks of fighting to offset 110,000 losses. Without replacements in the rifle companies, the infantry divisions lost their combat effectiveness and were reduced to battle groups.
   The lack of replacements and of the additional divisions that should have been formed had a serious impact on the conduct of the battles in both the East and West. The result was the loss of over 800,000 Germans reported killed and missing in July and August 1944, compared to a usual monthly loss of 100,000 men in those categories. In view of the rapid rebuilding of the German army in August of 1944 after the conspirators had been removed, there is little question that replacements had been available and that additional divisions could have been formed earlier. These omissions culminated in an earlier end of the war in Europe, to the benefit of all countries involved.

   In his first chapter, Dunn writes a general overview of the German Replacement Army. He describes how the system worked, how it changed during the course of the war, and he accounts for all the German divisions created in thirty-two different waves from 1933 through August 1944. Dunn also examines the manner in which "march companies" and replacement battalions functioned, measuring the ebb and flow of German manpower and the typical routine in which new and recuperating soldiers were dispatched to the front. According to these figures, by summer 1944 units controlled by the Replacement Army were scattered throughout every city and town in Germany, the ranks of these units were swollen far beyond their usual numbers, and replacements to the field army had been reduced to a trickle. Dunn attributes this surge in Replacement Army strength to "falsified reports" and notes the ease with which manpower could be shuffled and concealed.
   The second chapter examines the state of the field army and the replacement army during 1942, illustrating the situation with a history of the German 65th Infantry Division. The next chapter follows in a similar vein with information about the buildup for Kursk, noting the reorganization of divisions, the balance of forces on various fronts, increased conscription of younger men, older men, and Volksdeutsch.

   The most obvious program was to accelerate the induction of young men into the army. Normally men were inducted in the year that they reached the age of eighteen. However, in 1943 the date of induction was pushed forward to provide replacements sooner. The class of 1924 (men born in 1924, reaching the age of eighteen in 1942) had received about six months' training and entered combat in the winter of 1942-1943. The class of 1925 (age eighteen in 1943) was drafted in May 1943 and sent to the front as early as September 1943 after only four months' training. The class of 1926 was drafted in the late fall of 1943 before reaching eighteen and was given only four months' training before being sent to units beginning in March 1944. The class of 1926 was available nine months earlier than would normally have been the case and made an enormous number of men available in the spring of 1944.
   The changes in the induction and training schedule by June 1943 increased the Replacement Army to 1.5 million men in training and 300,000 convalescents, compared to 5,000,000 men in the field army and the SS.

   In the second half of 1943 ever more desperate measures were undertaken to meet German needs for soldiers, including the formation of "ear" and "stomach" battalions filled with physically unfit men. Men between 50 and 60 years of age were drafted for non-combat jobs. Large numbers of Ost battalions, formed from POWs of various Soviet nationalities, were sent to garrison duties in France to release German troops for combat on the Russian front. Dunn follows the evolving organizations and TOEs as well as the creation and shifting of units and manpower as the German high command struggled to make ends meet through the end of 1943.
   The "Valkure" (Valkyrie) plan was originally a contingency for emergency reinforcement of the field army with ad hoc units assembled on the fly from training cadres, convalescents, and untrained recruits. At the end of July 1943, General Erich Fromm, commander of the Replacement Army, issued orders that Valkure could be used not only to reinforce the field army in an emergency, but also "to suppress internal disturbances caused by saboteurs or uprisings by foreign laborers and prisoners in Germany." Valkure exercises were initially held in August 1943, with more conducted later, including rehearsals in Berlin.

   The impetus for the secret order for the mobilization of Replacement Army units was the series of air raids on Hamburg, which began on 25 July 1943 and ended on 30 July 1943. The six continuous days and nights of bombing by the U.S. Air Force and the RAF destroyed a large portion of the city. Military units had been called into the city to maintain order and restore some semblance of normal functioning. The catastrophe was so serious that the German leadership feared if it was repeated, civil government would collapse. Clearing the debris and finding the dead was accomplished by the use of prisoners and the local Replacement Army units. From that experience, Hitler realized the need to have a plan to mobilize the local replacement units in a matter of hours—thus the new Valkure units, which were to be formed into reinforced battalions from all elements of the Replacement Army. The order for Valkure Stage I required that all company-sized units be combat ready in six hours. Valkure Stage II required that these companies be formed into battalions and combat groups as soon as possible. The combat groups were assigned signal, transport, and other administrative personnel to prepare them for combat.
   On 6 October 1943 an additional order required that all units of the field army in Germany that were re-forming were to become part of the Valkure organization, under the command of General Fromm. On 11 February 1944 a further order outlined the formation of regiments and their assignment to vital points in their area. The regiments included two or three infantry battalions, an infantry gun company, one or two antitank companies, two or three artillery batteries, and an engineer company. These regiments were to be available where needed and could be ordered up individually, making them very flexible tools in the hands of the conspirators.
   The Valkure orders remained top secret, and few individuals were aware of the plan. As no Nazi Party or SS organizations were included in the Valkure plan, the conspirators could call up a military force without the knowledge of the Nazi Party. The problem was that General Fromm personally had to issue the code words to the various military districts, but as noted, the plotters believed that if Hitler were assassinated Fromm would cooperate.

   According to Dunn, most German divisions were near full strength by 1 June 1944, and many were above their authorized manpower levels. In addition, the Replacement Army had swollen to new highs. Chapter Five reviews the state of the Heere shortly before Overlord and Bagration, examining OBs, TOEs, and manpower on every front. Dunn concludes that—had the Replacement Army released available forces—sufficient manpower, weapons, and equipment existed for Germany to have formed sixty new divisions in the first six months of 1944, and he outlines how this could have been accomplished with a general plan and some specific examples. "The Replacement Army had more men available in early 1944 than at any other time during the war with, as we have seen, at least 600,000 men ready for assignment, many of them returning wounded who would return to their original division. The complete program as outlined for the production of sixty divisions [i.e., Dunn's proposal] would have required fewer than 400,000 combat-fit men, 100,000 limited-service men, and 120,000 hiwis...."
   Dunn's figures show that in the first two months of Overlord, the German 7th Army received only 10,000 men to replace 80,000 losses, despite the large numbers of troops ready and available in the Replacement Army. Was that because the Allies "sealed off the battlefield?" Dunn devotes several pages to disproving that theory by investigating the manner in which German units moved by road and rail, rail capacities, time involved, effects of air attacks, hours of darkness, etc. This he illustrates with some specific examples of German movements. In the following pages, Dunn gives an overview of the fighting in Normandy, emphasizing the buildup of forces on both sides, casualties, replacements, and the relative balance of strength. Dunn also claims that while the Heere divisions melted away due to lack of replacements, the SS divisions in Normandy continued to receive a stream of replacements from their own, separate sources of manpower controlled by Himmler.

   If the German Replacement Army had released fifty or more combat replacement battalions (800 to 1,000 men each) between 7 June and 25 July at a rate of one per day, each carried by a single train, the battered divisions could have been restored to nearly full strength. A combat replacement battalion could be loaded on a single twenty-car train in Germany and reach Paris by dark. From Paris the train could travel by night, to avoid air attack, to within thirty miles of the front. The battalion could march the final distance in one or two nights. There were multiple lines from Paris to the Normandy area, one of which would have been open on most nights. Instead, the Replacement Army released only 10,000 men during the seven weeks. The 243rd, 91st, and 77th Divisions and the battle group of the 265th could have been brought up to a reasonable strength with five replacement battalions each. The effective combat strength of the forces facing VII and VIII Corps would have more than doubled. As it was, when the Americans broke the crust of the German line, they were able to slice through France in the next two months. Only after the Germans had created or rebuilt nearly sixty divisions and placed them in the line would the rapid American advance come to halt.
   The manipulation of troops by the Replacement Army was evident in June and led to the disasters of late July and August. There should have been twenty-eight additional German divisions in France on 6 June 1944. After the invasion the deliberate withholding of replacements was most acutely damaging in the first six weeks after D day. While the Allies provided 79,000 replacements for 61,732 losses by 30 June, keeping their divisions up to strength, only 10,000 replacements for 110,000 losses were provided by mid-July to the divisions in Rommel's army group. While American and British divisions continued to appear as such in orders of battle, the German infantry divisions appear as combat groups, usually of regimental size. Infantry divisions on both sides each lost two or three thousand riflemen in the first six weeks. The Allies replaced their losses with newly trained riflemen, while the Germans, denied the thousands of replacements in training battalions in Germany, used service troops to fill some of the ranks of the rifle companies and reduced their divisions to regiments.

   In some ways, the material on Normandy, especially the tracking of divisions moving in and out of France in the months before the invasion, echoes Dunn's earlier book, Second Front Now. On the other hand, the chapter on Normandy also contains many fresh ideas, some of them a bit unconventional:

• It refers to the success of Operation Fortitude as a "fable," because "Hitler knew through intercepts of the transatlantic phone calls between Roosevelt and Churchill that a second landing would not take place."

• It takes issue with the Allied claim that German repair crews could not keep up with the rate of air attacks and sabotage against rail lines.

• It strongly disagrees with the notion that the Allies ever managed to "seal off" the Normandy battlefield, and further claims that if the transportation system "had been as bad as pictured in the official American accounts, the people of Paris would have starved to death."

• It accuses the Allied generals, and Omar Bradley in particular, of inventing as an excuse the "failure" of the Allied supply system during the pursuit across France, when the advance was actually halted by the arrival of fresh German divisions and replacements which were released by Hitler in the wake of the failed coup.

   In chapter Seven, Dunn traces the course of events on the Russian Front in June and July 1944, analyzes the same factors, and draws the same conclusions as he does with his evaluation of Normandy. (Much of this work, by the way, resembles parts of his previous book, Soviet Blitzkrieg: The Battle for White Russia, 1944.) The bottom line? Once again, the author is convinced that intentionally withholding replacements and failing to form fresh divisions—in order to retain sufficient forces to guarantee success of the coup—contributed significantly if not decisively to the German defeat. In this chapter, Dunn tells the story in more straight-forward fashion with fewer asides, less information about railways and troop movements, and fewer disagreements with conventional wisdom.
   In sum, Heroes or Traitors emerges as more controversial than the same material might have seemed in someone else's hands. Although Dunn raises some interesting issues and offers much supporting evidence, his central thesis—not only did the conspirators plan to kill Hitler and assume control of the government, but they also subverted Hitler's orders, virtually stopped producing new divisions, restricted the flow of replacements to the front, and retained control of ad hoc Valkure formations to support the coup, all without the knowledge of Hitler or his staff; and further, that withholding those troops was the single most important factor in the German defeats during the summer of 1944—must be regarded as unproven. Plausible perhaps, but still uncorroborated. For example, volume V, part II of Germany and the Second World War, the product of considerable research and scholarship, in its detailed examination of German manpower makes no mention of unusual changes in the balance between Replacement Army and field army forces, nor does it indicate any artificial constriction of the flow of replacements.
   Nevertheless, for the most part Dunn makes a solid and reasonable case, but he doesn't help his cause when he throws in some questionable and/or debatable points (especially in the chapter on Normandy) and fails to footnote his contentions. In particular, the author nearly demolishes his entire presentation when in the concluding chapter he suddenly hints of even darker, deeper conspiracies involving Erwin Rommel, the plotters, and British intelligence.

   Why did the Germans lose so many prisoners in June and July 1944 (reported in July and August, the respective months following the losses)? The number is astonishing, compared to only 127,000 reported missing in January 1943, following the debacle at Stalingrad. Such heavy losses on two fronts cannot be mere coincidence.
   As a skeptic, I do not believe in coincidence, which is often invoked as cover stories explaining covert action. We know there was a conspiracy, but we do not know the extent of what was done. The thesis presented is that much more was involved than is commonly known, especially with respect to the Replacement Army.
   A curious series of events occurred on 17 July. In the morning Rommel sent a message to Hitler pointing out that only 10,000 replacements had arrived in the previous weeks compared to 110,000 losses; this dispatch would have alerted Hitler to the actions of the Replacement Army. There is some question, however, as to whether this message was ever delivered. At 6 P.M., as Rommel was driven to the front (or to Germany—there are conflicting accounts), two British fighters attacked Rommel's car in an attempt to kill him. I cannot recall seeing in the succeeding fifty-seven years any explanation of why two British fighters were in the American sector attacking road traffic, a task normally performed by P-47s of the Ninth Air Force. Nor can I recall any mention of the names of the pilots or of their squadron. Rommel commanded from the front and was aware of the risks of air attack. That he would have knowingly exposed himself to such an attack is not at all likely.
   The details of July 1944 plot and the cooperation of British intelligence will probably never be known....

   Walter Dunn certainly knows better than this! Regarding Rommel in particular, the actual events are not nearly so mysterious and ominous as he indicates. Here are the facts in response to some of his mysteries:

• Rommel's message to Hitler passed through Kluge who attached his own cover letter stating "I have now been...convinced that the views of the Field Marshal are unfortunately right." The report did mention the lack of replacements, but only as part of a much broader review of conditions at the front, ending with the argument that the disastrous situation required Hitler to "draw the appropriate [political] conclusions," with the word "political" only deleted at the last moment.

• As to the direction in which Rommel was heading, he was returning to Army Group headquarters after visiting I and II SS Panzer Corps headquarters, departing Dietrich's HQ in Urville south of Caen at around 1600.

• Rommel was well aware of the danger of attack from the air, and his vehicle carried a lookout, Corporal Holke, whose only job was to watch for aircraft.

• The route took Rommel east, and his car was strafed between Livarot and Vimoutiers, well to the east of Caen, and certainly within the zone of RAF jabos, not in "the American sector."

• According to the official German report, and according to records of Allied air activity, many fighter-bombers from a variety of RAF squadrons were operating in that area on the evening of 17 July.

• Because of the swarms of aircraft active in that sector, it has not been easy for historians to pin down the pilot who strafed Rommel. Generally credit goes to Squadron Leader J. J. Le Roux in a Spitfire of 602 Squadron (see, for example, Aces High: Fighter Aces of the British and Commonwealth Air Forces in World War II by Chris Shores and Clive Williams), but at least two others have been named because they were also conducting ground-attack missions in the same area at the same time: Charley Fox (Spitfire, 412 Squadron) and Group Captain Joe Holmes (Typhoon, 266 Squadron).

  Overlooking some well-documented facts about the wounding of Rommel, trying to tie the attack on the field marshal into "the cooperation of British intelligence," and hinting at some hidden conspiracy is not up to the levels of research, clear-sightedness, and professionalism we've come to expect from Dunn in his previous work, and certainly does nothing to bolster the credibility of his otherwise thoughtful book.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from Praeger.
   Thanks to Praeger for providing this review copy.