Erich von Manstein

Erich von Manstein (November 24, 1887–June 10, 1973) was a lifelong professional soldier who rose to be one of the most prominent commanders of Nazi Germany's Armed Forces (Wehrmacht) during World War II; he attained the rank of Field Marshal (Generalfeldmarschall), although he never was a member of the Nazi Party himself. He was the mastermind behind the Fall Gelb, the plan for the German invasion of France that would be carried out successfully in 1940; later, he was commander of armies in Crimea and Leningrad before becoming the commander of Army Group South. In this position, Manstein achieved one of the greatest victories in modern warfare when, despite the numerical and material superiority of Soviets, he was able to halt Red Army’s offensive fresh from the victory at Stalingrad and went on to capture the city of Kharkov with his own successful counteroffensive.

Though he never questioned Hitler's final authority as commander-in-chief of the German army, he was famous for repeatedly standing up to Hitler on various issues, often with the rest of the General Staff watching. Although this would have normally led to his swift removal, Manstein was one of a very few generals who had repeatedly proved themselves in Hitler's eyes. Eventually, his differences with Hitler over matters of strategy led to his being dismissed in 1944. After the war, a British military tribunal sentenced him to 18 years' imprisonment in 1949 for the commission of war crimes, but he was released after only four years citing medical reasons. Subsequently, he served as a senior advisor to the West German government, helping to shape the new Bundeswehr.

Early life

Manstein was born Fritz Erich von Lewinski in Berlin, the tenth child of a Prussian aristocrat, artillery general Eduard von Lewinski (1829–1906), and Helene von Sperling (1847–1910). Hedwig von Sperling (1852–1925), a younger sister of Erich's mother Helene, was married to Lieutenant General Georg von Manstein (1844–1913). The couple was not able to have their own children, so it was decided that the unborn child would be adopted by his childless uncle and aunt. When he was born, the Lewinskis wrote a telegram to the Mansteins which stated: "You got a healthy boy today. Mother and child well. Congratulations." (von Manstein, E.: Soldat im 20. Jahrhundert, 5th Ed., 2002, p. 10).

Not only were Erich von Manstein's "fathers" Prussian Generals, two of his grandfathers had also been Prussian Generals (one of them leading a corps in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71), and so was his mother's brother; he was also closely related to Paul von Hindenburg, the future Generalfeldmarschall and President of Germany. Thus his career in the Prussian army was assured from birth. He attended the lycée in Straßburg (1894–1899), which had become part of the German Empire after the war of 1870/71. He then spent six years in the cadet corps (1900–1906) in Plön and Groß-Lichterfelde. Manstein joined the Third Foot Guards Regiment (Garde zu Fuß) in March 1906 as an ensign. He was promoted to lieutenant in January 1907. In October 1913 he entered the War Academy.

Middle years

World War I

During World War I he served both on the German Western Front (Belgium/France 1916: Attack on Verdun, 1917/18: Champagne) and the Eastern Front (1915: North Poland, 1915/16: Serbia, 1917: Estonia). In Poland he was wounded severely in November 1914 and returned to duty in 1915, promoted to Captain and remained as staff officer until the end of the war in 1918. In 1918, he volunteered for the staff position in Frontier Defence Force in Breslau (Wroclaw) and served there until 1919.

Inter-war era

He married Jutta Sibylle von Loesch in 1920, the daughter of a Silesian landowner; the relationship would last until her death in 1966. They had three children: a daughter named Gisela, and two sons, Gero (b. December 31, 1922) and Rüdiger. Their older son Gero died on the battlefield in the northern sector of the eastern front on October 29, 1942.

He stayed in the military after the war, and in the 1920s, Manstein took part in the process of creating the Reichswehr, the 100,000 man German Army of the Weimar Republic imposed by the Versailles Treaty. He was promoted to Company commander in 1920, and Batallion Commander in 1922. In 1927 he was promoted again to Major, and started serving with the General Staff, visiting other countries to learn about their military. In 1933 the Nazi party rose to power in Germany ending the Weimar era, one of their main political aims was denunciation of the Versailles Treaty with large scale rearmament and expansion of the military.

On July 1, 1935, he was made the Head of Operations Branch of the Army General Staff (Generalstabs des Heeres), part of the Army High Command (OKH). During this tenure, he proposed the development of Sturmgeschütz, self-propelled assault guns that would provide heavy direct-fire support to infantry, relieving the mobile tank forces of this mundane task. In World War II, the resulting StuG series would prove to be one of the most successful and cost-effective German weapons.

He was promoted on October 1, 1936, becoming the Deputy Chief of Staff (Oberquartermeister I ) to the Chief of the Army General Staff, General Ludwig Beck. Beck and Manstein fought against the encroaching political influence of Nazi party on the Army. They also advocated that the Army should have seniority over other services in the new Wehrmacht (Armed Forces) High Command (OKW), pitting them against Hermann Göring, the head of the Luftwaffe (Air Force).

Because of these conflicts and also in part because he wasn't a member of the Nazi party, Manstein was termed uncooperative by Hitler, and was sent away from the Army Command in Berlin to Liegnitz, Silesia, to serve as the commander of the 18th Infantry Regiment.

World War II

Poland

On August 18, 1939, in preparation for Operation Fall Weiss, the German invasion of Poland, he was appointed the Chief of Staff to Gerd von Rundstedt’s Army Group South. Here he worked along with Rundstedt’s Chief of Operations, Colonel Günther Blumentritt on developing the operational plan. Rundstedt accepted Manstein’s plan that called for the concentration of the majority of Army Group’s armored units into Walther von Reichenau’s 10th Army with the objective of a decisive breakthrough leading to the encirclement of Polish forces west of the River Vistula. In Manstein’s plan, two other armies comprising the Army Group South, Wilhelm List’s 14th Army and Johannes Blaskowitz’s 8th Army were to provide the support of the flanks to Reichenau’s main armored thrust towards Warsaw, the Polish capital. Privately, Manstein was lukewarm about the Polish Campaign, thinking that it was better to have Poland as a buffer between Germany and the Soviet Union; he was also worried about the Allied attack on the West Wall once the Polish Campaign started, thus drawing Germany into a two front war.

Launched on September 1, the invasion started successfully. In Army Group South’s area of responsibility, armored units of the 10th Army pursued the retreating Poles, giving them no time to set up a defense, while the 8th army on its flanks, prevented the unconnected Polish troop concentrations in Lódz, Radom and Poznan from merging into a more coherent force. Digressing from the original plan that called for heading straight for Vistula and then proceeding to Warsaw, Manstein swayed Rundstedt into encircling the Polish units in the Radom area. The encirclement succeeded, clearing the bulk of Polish resistance from the southern approach to Warsaw.

France

On September 27, Poland formally surrendered although isolated pockets of resistance remained, on the same day Hitler ordered the Army High Command (OKH) led by General Franz Halder to develop the plan for actions in the west against France and the Low Countries. Fall Gelb (Case Yellow), the plan OKH came up with, rehashed the old Schlieffen Plan with the main axis of attack being through Belgium, but was limited in scope to a tactical victory in Belgium instead of a direct invasion of France. Although Hitler objected to its lack of boldness, it was accepted and slated to begin in mid November.

By late October, the bulk of the German army was transferred and redeployed to the west, in preparation for the upcoming conflict. Manstein was made the Chief of Staff of Rundstedt’s Army Group A in western Germany. Like many of the Army's younger officers, Manstein opposed Fall Gelb, criticizing it for its lack of creativity and the improper utilization of the armored forces, coming from OKH's lack of understanding of the new mobile concepts of warfare, principally the blitzkrieg concepts of Heinz Guderian, Germany's foremost armored warfare expert. Manstein also pointed out that a rehash of the Schlieffen Plan with the attack trough Belgium was something Allies expected as they were already moving strong forces into the area; he also opposed the timetable, arguing that fighting in the spring instead of November or the winter months, would be far more suitable and advantageous for the German army.

Manstein developed his own plan: he suggested that the tank troops should decisively attack through the wooded hills of the Ardennes, where no one would expect them, seize bridges on the Meuse River and rapidly drive to the English Channel before redeploying and striking eastwards, thus outflanking the Maginot Line and cutting off strong French and Allied Armies in the Belgium and Flanders from the French mainland. The plan was nicknamed Sichelschnitt (sickle cut).

OKW originally rejected the proposal, Halder had Manstein transferred from Rundstedt's headquarters and sent away to command the 38th Army Corps. But Hitler, looking for a innovative new methods of waging war, approved of a modified version of Mansteins ideas, that later became known as the Manstein Plan. Manstein and his corps played a minor role during the operations in France, serving under Günther von Kluge's 4th Army, however it was his corps which helped to achieve the first breakthrough, east of Amiens, and was first to reach and cross the River Seine. The invasion was an outstanding military success and Manstein was awarded the Knight's Cross for planning it and promoted to General.

Barbarossa

In February 1941, Manstein was appointed commander of the 56th Panzer Corps. He was involved in Operation Barbarossa where he served under General Erich Hoepner. Attacking on 22nd June 1941, Manstein advanced more than 100 miles in only two days and was able to seize two vital bridges over the Dvina River at Dvinsk. The following month he captured Demyansk and Torzhok.

Crimea

Manstein was appointed commander of 11th Army in September 1941, and was given the task of conquering the Crimea. The Red Army defended Sevastopol and this important Black Sea naval base was not taken until late June 1942.

Leningrad

Promoted to Field Marshal on July 1, Manstein was sent to the Leningrad front and assigned to lead Operation Northern Lights. Set to launch on September 15, Hitler was confident that with considerable amounts of artillery and the new Tiger tank this push would finally break the determined Soviet defense, but Manstein was more pessimistic about its outcome, arguing that for a victory, a simultaneous attack in the north by the Finns would be needed. However, on August 27, the Soviets launched a spoiling attack on Georg Lindemann’s 18th Army in the narrow German salient west of Lake Ladoga, Manstein was now forced to divert his forces in order to avoid catastrophe. What ensued was a series of bitter battles where Manstein's smaller forces managed to outmaneuver the larger Soviet forces, and the loss of over 60,000 men over the next few months.

Stalingrad

On November 21, 1942, during the Battle of Stalingrad, Adolf Hitler appointed Manstein the commander of the a newly created Army Group Don (Heeresgruppe Don), comprised of a hastily assembled group of tired men and machines, and ordered him to lead Operation Wintergewitter (Winter Storm), the rescue effort composed of Hermann Hoth's 4th Panzer Army and auxiliary Romanian troops, to relieve the 6th Army of Friedrich Paulus that was encircled inside the city. Wintergewitter, launched on December 12, achieved some initial success and von Manstein got his three panzer divisions and supporting units of the 57th Panzer Corps(comprised of the 23 Panzer Grenadier Division, and the 6 and 17 Panzer Divisions) to within 30 miles of the city by December 20. However, the corps was halted at the River Aksay, and strong Russian forces pushed them back. At this point Manstein pleaded that the 6th Army attempt a break out, but Paulus refused, since Hitler flatly refused to issue such an order, and instead ordered the 6th Army to stay in the besieged city.

Operation Saturn, a massive Red Army offensive in the most southern part of the front, aimed at capturing Rostov and thus cutting off the German Army Group A still withdrawing from the Caucasus, forced Manstein to divert his forces to help hard-pressed Army Group A in its retreat to Ukraine, thus avoiding the complete collapse of the entire front. The attack also prevented the 48 Panzer Corps (comprising the 336 Infantry Division, the 3 Luftwaffe Field Division, and the 11 Panzer Division) under the command of General von Knobelsdorff from joining up with 57 Panzer Corps as planned. Instead, the corps held a line along the River Chir, beating off successive Russian attacks. General Hermann Balck particularly distinguished himself, using the 11 Panzer Division in brilliant counterattacks against Russian salients. But the Romanian, Italian, and Hungarian armies on the flanks were bowled over, and 48 Panzer Corps was forced to retreat. As a result of this, the remnants of the 4 Panzer Army retreated, for their northern flank was exposed with the loss of the Don.

Kharkov Operation

By early February the German forces started to regroup, Manstein's Army Group Don was combined with Army Group B and made into the new Army Group South (Heeresgruppe Süd), led by Manstein. On February 21 he launched a counteroffensive into the overextended Soviet flank. The assault proved a major success: von Manstein's troops advanced rapidly into the Soviet territory, isolating Soviet forward units and forcing the Red Army to halt most of its offensive operations; by March 2, tank spearheads from Hoth's 4th Panzer Army and Army Detachment Kempf meet, cutting off large portions of the Soviet Southwest Front, and by March 9 the Wehrmacht inflicted a heavy defeat on the Soviets at Krasnograd and Barvenkovo. An estimated 23,000 Soviet soldiers were killed and a further 9,000 were captured. Additionally, 615 Soviet tanks and 354 guns were also captured.

Manstein now went on and pushed onward, his effort spearheaded by Paul Hausser's 2nd SS Panzer Corps, recapturing Kharkov on March 14, after the bloody street-fighting of what is known the Third Battle of Kharkov; in recognition for this operation, von Manstein received the Oak Leaves for the Knight's Cross. The 2nd SS Panzer Corps then went on to capture Belgorod on March 21. Manstein then proposed a daring action for the summer nicknamed the "backhand blow", which was intended to outflank the Red Army into the Sea of Azov at Rostov, but Hitler instead chose to back the more conventional Operation Citadel aimed at crushing the Kursk salient.

Citadel

During Operation Citadel, Manstein led the southern pincer, and despite losses he managed to complete most of his initial goals, inflicting far more casualties on the Soviet defending force that his attacking force sustained. In his memoirs, Marshal Georgy Zhukov, who led the Soviet defense at Kursk, praised Manstein by recalling that as the German Commander of the southern sector he displayed considerable talents in using his troops. But due to the almost complete failure of the northern sector's pincer led by Günther von Kluge and Walther Model, chronic lack of infantry support, as well as the Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Italy, Hitler decided to call off the offensive. Manstein protested, asserting that the victory was almost at hand as he felt he had achieved local superiority, and that with a little more effort he could crack the Soviet defense before they could bring in their reserves. After the failure of Citadel the Soviets launched a massive counterattack on the exhausted German forces.

Dnieper Campaign

In September he withdrew to the west bank of the Dnieper River, while inflicting heavy casualties on the Red Army. From October to mid-January of 1944, von Manstein "stabilized" the situation. The Soviets established a salient from Kiev, and were within reach of the crucial town of Zhitomir. But the Germans staged a fantastic counteroffensive. SS Panzer Divisions Leibstandarte and Das Reich, 1, 7, 19, and 25 Panzer Divisions, and 68 Infantry Division (part of 4 Panzer Army), wheeled around the flank of the Russians in front of Zhitomir. Several notable victories were won, at Brussilov, Radomyshl, and Meleni, under the guidance of the brillian General Balck, but due to the lackluster judgement of Colonel General Rauss, the new commander of 4 Panzer Army, the Kiev Salient could not be elimated. In late January, von Manstein was forced to retreat further westwards by the Soviet offensive. In mid-February of 1944, he disobeyed Hitler's order and ordered 11th and 42nd Corps (consisting of 56,000 men in six divisions) of Army Group South to break out from the "Korsun Pocket", which occurred on February 16/17th. Eventually, Hitler accepted this action and ordered the breakout after it already took place.

Dismissal

Manstein continued to argue with Hitler about overall strategy on the Eastern Front. He advocated an elastic, mobile defense—he was quite ready to cede territory, attempting to make the Soviet forces either to stretch out too thinly or to make them advance too fast such that they could be attacked on the flanks with the goal of encircling them. Hitler instead insisted on static, attritional total war. Because of these frequent disagreements, Manstein publicly advocated that Hitler should relinquish his control and leave the management of the war to professionals, starting with the establishment of the position of Oberbefehlshaber Ost (Supreme Commander in the East); Hitler however rejected this idea numerous times, in fear that it would weaken his powerhold.

This argument also alarmed some of Hitler's closes henchman such as Göring and the SS chief Himmler who were not prepared to give up any of their powers. Himmler started to openly question Manstein's loyalty and implied he was a defeatist not suitable to command troops. Manstein's frequent arguing combined with these allegations certainly did not help, and as a result, in March 1944 Hitler relieved Manstein of his command and on April 2, 1944, instead appointed Walther Model, a fervent Nazi, as the commander of Southern Army Group. Nevertheless, Manstein received the Swords for his Knight's Cross, the second highest German military honour.

After his dismissal he entered an eye clinic in Breslau, recuperated near Dresden, and then retired. Although he did not take part in the attempt to kill Hitler in July 1944, he was aware of it. He had been contacted by Henning von Tresckow and others already in 1943, but while he did agree that the change was necessary, he had refused to join them, as he still considered himself bound by duty (he rejected the approaches with the statement "Preussische Feldmarschälle meutern nicht" — "Prussian Field Marshals do not mutiny") and also feared that a civil war would ensue. Though he didn't join them, he never betrayed the plotters either. In late January of 1945 he collected his family from their homes in Liegnitz and evacuated them to western Germany. He surrendered to British Field Marshal Montgomery and was arrested by the British troops on August 23, 1945.

Post War

Trial

During the Nuremberg trials in 1946, he was only called as a witness for the defense, testifying in the indictment against the General Staff of the Army and High Command of the German Armed Forces; both organizations were acquitted. Von Manstein was subsequently interned by the British as a prisoner of war in "Special Camp 11" in Bridgend. Later, because of the Soviet pressure, who wanted him extradited to stand trial in the USSR, the British accepted their indictments and charged him of war crimes, putting him on trial before a Britsh Military Tribunal in Hamburg in August 1949. In part because of the Soviet demands in the Cold War environment, and respect for his military exploits, many in the British military establishment, such as the Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery and the renowned military strategist B. H. Liddell Hart, openly expressed sympathy for von Manstein's plight and along with the likes of Sir Winston Churchill donated money to help set up the defense. Churchill saw the trial as yet another effort of the then ruling Attlee government aimed at appeasing the Soviets.

In court, Manstein's defense, led by the prominent lawyer Reginald Thomas Paget, argued that he had been unaware that genocide was taking place in territory under his control. During the trial it was argued that von Manstein didn't enforce the Commissar order, which called for the immediate execution of Red Army’s Communist Party commissars. According to his testimony at the Nuremberg trials, Volume 20, pp. 608–609 (August 10, 1946) [1] (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/08-10-46.htm), he received it, but refused to carry it out. He claimed that his superior at that time, Field Marshal von Leeb, tolerated and tacitly approved of his choice, and he also claimed that the order were not carried out in practice.

However, von Manstein did issue an order on November 20, 1941: his version of the infamous "Reichenau Order" [2] (http://www.ns-archiv.de/krieg/untermenschen/reichenau.shtml), which equated "partisans" and "Jews" and called for draconic measures against them. Hitler and Field Marshal von Rundstedt recommended the "Reichenau Order" as being exemplary and encouraged other generals to issue similar orders. Not all did, in fact, it seems that only a minority did do so. Von Manstein was among those who voluntarily issued such an order. It stated that:

"This struggle is not being carried on against the Soviet Armed Forces alone in the established form laid down by European rules of warfare.

Behind the front too, the fighting continues. Partisan snipers dressed as civilians attack single soldiers and small units and try to disrupt our supplies by sabotage with mines and infernal machines. Bolshevists left behind keep the population freed from Bolshevism in a state of unrest by means of terror and attempt thereby to sabotage the political and economic pacification of the country. Harvests and factories are destroyed and the city population in particular is thereby ruthlessly delivered to starvation.

Jewry is the middleman between the enemy in the rear and the remains of the Red Army and the Red leadership still fighting. More strongly than in Europe they hold all key positions of political leadership and administration, of trade and crafts and constitutes a cell for all unrest and possible uprisings.

The Jewish Bolshevik system must be wiped out once and for all and should never again be allowed to invade our European living space.

The German soldier has therefore not only the task of crushing the military potential of this system. He comes also as the bearer of a racial concept and as the avenger of all the cruelties which have been perpetrated on him and on the German people."

...

"The soldier must appreciate the necessity for the harsh punishment of Jewry, the spiritual bearer of the Bolshevik terror. This is also necessary in order to nip in the bud all uprisings which are mostly plotted by Jews."

(Nuremberg trials proceedings, Vol. 20, pp. 639–645 [3] (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/08-10-46.htm))

The order also stated: "The food situation at home makes it essential that the troops should as far as possible be fed off the land and that furthermore the largest possible stocks should be placed at the disposal of the homeland. Particularly in enemy cities a large part of the population will have to go hungry."(ibid.) This also was one of the indictments against von Manstein in Hamburg; not only neglect of civilians, but also exploitation of invaded countries for the sole benefit of the "homeland", something considered illegal by the then current laws of war.

But Manstein did not allow the order to be passed on without adding a supplement which stated that "severe steps will be taken against arbitrary action and self-interest, against savagery and indiscipline, against any violation of the honor of the soldier" and that "respect for religious customs, particularly those of Muslim Tartars, must be demanded." (ibid.) The evidence for this order was first presented by prosecutor Telford Taylor on August 10, 1946, in Nuremberg; von Manstein acknowledged that he had signed this order of November 20, 1941, but claimed that he didn't remember it. This order was a major piece of evidence for the prosecution at his Hamburg trial.

While Paget successfully acquitted Manstein of many of the seventeen charges, he was still found guilty of two charges and accountable on seven others, mainly for employing scorched earth tactics and for failing to protect civilian population, and thus was sentenced on December 19, 1949, to 18 years' imprisonment. This caused a massive uproar among Manstein's supporters and the sentence was subsequently reduced to 12 years. However, he was released on May 6 1953 for medical reasons.

Senior advisor

von Manstein in the mid-1950s

Called on by the West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, he served as his senior defense advisor and chaired a military sub-committee appointed to advise the parliament on military organization and doctrine for the new German Army, the Bundeswehr and its incorporation into NATO. He later moved with his family to Bavaria. His war memoirs, Verlorene Siege (Lost Victories), were published in Germany in 1955, and translated into English in 1958. In them, he presented the thesis that if the generals had been in charge of strategy instead of Hitler, the war on the Eastern Front could have been won.

Never having been a member of the Nazi party, he had no trouble in West Germany, unlike some other of the Reich's Field Marshals. Because of his influence, for the first few years of the Bundeswehr he was seen as the unofficial chef of staff, and even later his birthday parties were regularly attended by official delegations of Bundeswehr and NATO top leaders, such as General Hans Speidel who was the Commander in Chief of the Allied ground forces in Central Europe from 1957 to 1963. This wasn't the case with the party card carrying pro-Nazi Field Marshals such as Milch, Schörner, von Küchler, List, and others who were disregarded and forgotten after the war.

Erich von Manstein died at Irschenhausen, Bavaria, in June 1973. He was buried with full military honors. His obituary in The Times on June 13, 1973, stated that "His influence and effect came from powers of mind and depth of knowledge rather than by generating an electrifying current among the troops or "putting over" his personality."

Quotes about von Manstein

• "He was not only the most brilliant strategist of all our generals, but he had a good political sense. A man of that quality was too difficult for Hitler to swallow for long. At conferences Manstein often differed from Hitler, in front of others, and would go so far as to declare that some of the ideas which Hitler put forward were nonsense." Günther Blumentritt
• "The general verdict among the German generals I interrogated in 1945 was that Field-Marshal von Manstein had proved the ablest commander in their Army, and the man they had most desired to become its Commander-in-Chief. It is very clear that he had a superb sense of operational possibilities and equal mastery in the conduct of operations, together with a greater grasp of the potentialities of mechanized forces than any other commander who had not been trained in the tank arm. In sum, he had military genius." B. H. Liddell Hart
• "He is the best tactician and combat commander we have" Wolfram von Richthofen
• "Master of the Blitzkrieg" J.F.C. Fuller
• "He would mock Hitler, admit to his Jewish lineage, and would give a Nazi salute that parodied a dachshund’s trick of raising its paw." Anthony Beevor (Stalingrad, 1998, Penguin, p347)

References

• Barnett, Correlli (ed.) (2003). Hitler's Generals (reprint ed). Grove Press. ISBN 0802139949. Original edition first published in 1989.
• Mellenthin, Friedrich W. von. "Panzer Battles", New York: Ballantine Books, 1956.
• Carver, Sir Michael (1976). The War Lords: Military Commanders Of The Twentieth Century. Boston: Little Brown & Co. ISBN 0316130605
• Engelmann, Joachim (1981). Manstein, Stratege und Truppenführer: ein Lebensbericht in Bildern. Podzun-Pallas-Verlag. ISBN 3790901598
• Hart, B. H. Liddell (1999). The Other Side of the Hill (2nd ed). Pan Books. ISBN 0330373242. 1st edition originally published in 1948.
• Glantz, David M. (2002). Black Sea Inferno: The German Storm of Sevastopol 1941-1942. Spellmount Publishers. ISBN 1862271615
• von Manstein, Erich (2002). Soldat im 20. Jahrhundert. Bernard & Graefe. ISBN 3763752145
• von Manstein, Erich; Powell, Anthony G.; Hart, B. H. Liddell; Blumenson, Martin (2004). Lost Victories: The War Memoirs of Hitler's Most Brilliant General. Zenith Press. ISBN 0760320543
• Paget, Baron Reginald Thomas (1957). Manstein: His Campaigns and His Trial. London: Collins.
• Stahlberg, Alexander (1990). Bounden Duty: The Memoirs of a German Officer, 1932-1945. London: Brassey’s. ISBN 3548331297
• The British records of the Manstein Trial are now housed in the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, at King’s College, London.
• Von Manstein's whole testimonial at Nuremberg is spread out over three files at the Yale Avalon project: [4] (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/08-09-46.htm), [5] (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/08-10-46.htm) (contains von Manstein's order of November 20, 1941), and [6] (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/08-12-46.htm).
• Obituary of Manstein by The Times published on June 13, 1973 [7] (http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3937a175.20310107%40mail.nsw.dialix.com.au&output=gplain)

External links

• Chronology (http://www.bridgend-powcamp.fsnet.co.uk/Generalfeldmarschall%20Erich%20von%20Manstein.htm).
• Erich von Manstein – ein unpolitischer Soldat? (http://www.historisches-centrum.de/forum/schroeders04-2.html) - A critical assessment of von Manstein by Michael Schröders (in German).
• The New York Review of Books: How Wrong Was Churchill? (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2604) by Noel Annan
• Erich von Manstein's Counterattack (http://amh.freehosting.net/manstein.html) by F.W. Weatherbee, Jr. - Encompass: A Journal of Military History Vol. I No. 1; February 2004.
• Kursk Reconsidered: Germany's Lost Victory (http://web.archive.org/web/20010502220018/www.thehistorynet.com/worldwarII/articles/1998/0298_text.htm) by George M. Nipe, Jr. - World War II Articles 1998
• The Crimean Campaign - 1942 (http://www.worldwar2.ro/operatii/?article=7&language=en) by Victor Nitu; worldwar2.ro
• The Crimean Campaign (http://www.wehrmacht-awards.com/campaign_awards/shields/krim_campaign.htm) at wehrmacht-awards.com

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