Heroes or Traitors: The German Replacement Army, the July Plot, and Adolf Hitler (review)

Dunn presents details on the organisation and disposition of German divisions at home and in the order of battle, mainly during the years 1943 and 1944, and on German losses in the battles of Kursk in 1943, in France after the Allied landing of 1944, and in the east in the summer of 1944. He aims to show that "more than 600,000 German troops did not move from the Replacement Army to the field army between February and July 1944" (pp. xi, 160-61); that the conspirators of the 20 July coup and the generals deliberately withheld over a half-million men from the front (p. xiii); that "the German catastrophes that occurred in the East and the West and hastened the end were direct results of the lack of reserve divisions and replacements" (p. xiv); that "once Hitler had removed the conspirators he was able to release the troops and weapons for the front and to restore the situation by October 1944"; that "because 800,000 men had been lost in the summer, the end came in 1945, and few battles of the intensity of Stalingrad were fought on German soil" (p. xvii). Most of the assertions in the Introduction are repeated in the Conclusions. Some of these statements are, of course, nonsense. Germany's defeat in the Second World War cannot be explained by a loss of 800,000 men. No battles that came close to the intensity of the battle of Stalingrad were fought on German soil. The charge that unnamed conspirators sabotaged the fronts needs to be examined more closely.

The book deals with the July Plot itself indirectly, in speculative terms. Dunn believes that Germany's "loss of so many prisoners in June and July 1944 . . . cannot be mere coincidence. . . . 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" (p. 156). But Dunn does not differentiate between his "thesis" (supposition) and his assertions. He seeks to substantiate his vague suspicions by pointing out that Rommel had requested 110,000 men as replacements and received only 10,000. Demands and complaints of this sort were, of course, commonplace throughout the war. Dunn further claims (p. 162) that "Hitler acknowledged after the plotters finally had been eradicated that once again the troops and equipment were flowing to the fronts." In fact, Hitler speculated in a military situation briefing conference on 31 July 1944 (a source not listed by Dunn): "Why is so much being foiled? Why does [the enemy] react to so much in a flash? It is probably not Russian intelligence, but permanent treason which was committed constantly by a cursed small clique. But even if this was not a concrete reality, it would be enough that in some of the most decisive positions there were people who did not continuously radiate force and confidence." (Helmut Heiber, ed., Hitlers Lagebesprechungen. Die Protokollfragmente seiner militärischen Konferenzen 1942-1945 [Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1962], 587.)

Dunn also overlooks the fact that the presence of a given number of individual soldiers in Germany at a given time was not a static condition. Transfers from and to the fronts were taking place constantly. The presence of about 1.2 million soldiers at home at any given time was perfectly normal: a large number of them were on short-term leave, or formed the recruit-training staff, garrison troops, territorial militia, some were in hospital, some were in rehabilitation homes and recovering from wounds, some were unsuitable for front-line service (too old, amputated), some were indispensable specialists in weapons development, some were waiting to...