During the period when he was writing his memoirs, Manstein had no knowledge of the disobliging, indeed absurd, comments that his report had drawn from the Fiihrer: that Manstein had inflated the enemy numbers knowingly in the hope of imposing his personal decisions on O. K.H. Furthermore, the troops were bound to mirror their commander’s attitude, and if some divisions failed to measure up to the standards needed, it was because Manstein, lacking in conviction, had failed to inspire his men.
Hitler went on, in the presence of Zeitzler, who must have been somewhat dumbfounded, about the heroic times when the party assumed power, capturing in turn Mecklenburg, East Prussia ("refractory and reactionary”), Cologne ("red
A A small party of Soviet troops pulls hack past the wreckage of a shot-up motor convoy.
> ”Dniepropetrovsk is ours!” thunders this Kukryniksy cartoon of the "Bandit of Melitopol” being driven back out of Russia.
And black”), and-according to the stenographic account of the meeting-"Thuringia was dyed a deep red, but then I had a Koch at the time I wanted him, at another time a Ley or a Sauckel. There were men for you. When, by some mischance, I didn’t have the right men at hand, there was trouble. I took it as axiomatic that good Gaus made good Gauleiters. And it’s not a jot different today.”
World History
