The Enigma of General Blaskowitz

by Richard Giziowski

On February 5, 1948, General Johannes Blaskowitz died under mysterious circumstances while awaiting trial as a war criminal in Nurnberg. Was it suicide or murder at the hands of other prisoners? What was there about Blaskowitz's career that diehard Nazis among the prisoners would want to kill him? Dr. Giziowski uses the enigma of General Blaskowitz's last days as a starting point to examine one of the most remarkable military careers of the Third Reich.

532 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1996

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

OberstGeneral Blaskowitz was arguably one of Germany’s best senior officers during World War Two, on a par with Manstein, Rommel and Guderian and acknowledged as such by his peers. He was known as the consummate “ old school” German officer: cultured, athletic, intellectually sharp, politically neutral, highly logical, brave, detail-oriented and a superb manager of complexity. …a “ man of marble”. Even Keitel thought it unfair he was denied a Field Marshalship.
However, he is obscure, even to World War Two buffs. This is because he was sidelined and dismissed several times by Hitler and Himmler, who loathed him almost as much as he hated them. He died in mysterious circumstances and there is a real possibility he was murdered by SS trustee guards at Nuremberg only minutes before his trial was to begin. This would have been to stymie his testimony as to the widespread knowledge about the Holocaust amongst the Wehrmacht and government officials.
Blaskowitz served in the Polish campaign and in the occupation for three months. Then he wrote a factual and very blunt memo highly critical of the SS and SD actions in Poland and insisted the Wehrmacht could and would not engage in Nazi sponsored atrocities. He directly stated that “ only the lowest characters and criminals” would engage in anti-Jewish massacres”. This enraged Hitler and Himmler, who found his criticism of SS thuggery personally insulting.

Thereafter Blaskowitz was used as a training officer, put in retirement, then used as a the commander of occupation armies in southern France until he brilliantly directed a fighting retreat of his Army Group to the German border in 1944.
He reluctantly commanded the last successful German offensive of the war, Operation Nordwind, before being put in command of the Netherlands garrison, which he surrendered in May, 1945.
This book is the edited publication of a PHD. thesis and the focus is upon the Generals’ career between 1939-46. While it still approaches 600 pages in length, readers will find details of Blaskowitz’s imperial and Weimar career frustratingly short.
I suspect Blaskowitz was murdered, but he seems to have had the character to have committed suicide out of depression and shame. As one of his staff officers later said, “ he was overwhelmed by the shame of being German”.

[Bill Harper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely splendid book about General Johannes Blaskowitz, who stood up to the atrocities that occurred after the Campaign in Poland. He tried numerous times to inform Hitler of the crimes of the SS, SD and Gestapo, not knowing at the time that Hitler knew all about what was happening. Blaskowitz was a very religious man, who stood for his principles throughout the war. He was rated as the best strategist and tactician behind Field Marshal von Manstein, his name was even brought up as the man to rebuild the German military after the war. He lost critical commands because of his stance on the crime being committed in regard to the racial cleansing policies of the Hitler and Himmler. At hte end of the war he was held as POW, but was considered a witness until Telford Taylor named him as a defendant. Just before he was to go on the stand, he either committed suicide by jumping off the third floor of the Ministry of Justice in Nuremburg or possibly thrown over by former SS troopers, who were appointed Trustees by the US Army. A must read for anyone interested in the General Staff of Germany during WW2.