Friedrich von Mellenthin

Friedrich Wilhelm von Mellenthin
Born	(1904-08-30)August 30, 1904 Breslau, Silesia, German Empire (now Wrocław, Poland)
Died	Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
Allegiance	Weimar Republic (to 1933) Nazi Germany
Service/branch	Reichswehr Heer
Years of service	1924–45
Rank	Generalmajor
Unit	III Army Corps 197th Infantry Battalion Second Army Afrika Korps / Panzer Army Africa XLVIII Panzer Corps Army Group G 5th Panzer Army
Commands held	9th Panzer Division
Battles/wars	World War II Invasion of Poland Battle of France Balkans Campaign Siege of Tobruk Battle of Gazala First Battle of El Alamein Second Battle of El Alamein Battle of Stalingrad Battle of Kursk Battle of Kiev Lvov–Sandomierz Offensive Battle of Nancy Battle of Metz Battle of Arracourt Battle of the Bulge
Awards	German Cross in Gold
Other work	Author of Panzer Battles, director of Lufthansa in South Africa

Friedrich Wilhelm von Mellenthin (30 August 1904 – 28 June 1997) was a Generalmajor in the German Army during the Second World War. A participant in most of the major campaigns of the war, he became well known afterwards for his memoirs Panzer Battles, first published in 1956 and reprinted several times since then.

Mellenthin's works were part of the 'exculpatory memoirs' genre that fed the post-war revisionist narrative, put forth by other Wehrmacht generals. His works described his Soviet opponents in racial terms and tried to explain away the German defeat.

Early life and career

Mellenthin was born in Breslau, Silesia, into a military family; his father Paul Henning von Mellenthin was a lieutenant-colonel of artillery who was killed in action in 1918. Friedrich's older brother, Horst von Mellenthin, was also a Second World War general. In 1924, Friedrich von Mellenthin enlisted as a private soldier in the Seventh Cavalry Regiment of the Reichswehr. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1928. In 1932 he married Ingeborg von Aulock, a granddaughter of a South African emigrant. He was assigned to the Prussian Military Academy (Kriegsakademie) in 1935, where he took a two-year course for General Staff officers.

Second World War — Poland to Greece

Between 1937 and December 1939, Mellenthin served as the Third General Staff Officer (Ic-Intelligence) in the third Armeekorps of the Wehrmacht. In September 1939 he participated in the Invasion of Poland, where the his Armeekorps attacked from Pomerania and pressed along the Vistula River toward Warsaw, cutting off the retreat of Polish units in the Polish Corridor.

From June to August 1940, he was the First General Staff Officer (Ia-Operations) with the 197th Infantry Division during the Battle of France and the preparations for Operation Sea Lion. From September 1940 to February 1941, he was the Third General Staff Officer (Ic-Intelligence) in the First Army, then on occupation duty in northern France. After this period, from March to the end of May 1941 he was the Third General Staff Officer (Ic-Intelligence) with the Second Army during the German invasion of the Balkans.

Africa

Mellenthin was then posted to North Africa, where from June 1941 to September 1942 he served as the Third General Staff Officer (Ic-Intelligence) in Generaloberst Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps (which later became Panzer Armee Afrika, or PAA). He remained in this posting during the battles of Tobruk, Gazala, and the First and Second Battle of El Alamein. From July to September 1942 he also served as the Acting Operations Staff Officer to the newly promoted Field Marshal Erwin Rommel at PAA HQ.

On 10 July during the First Battle of El Alamein, PAA HQ came under direct attack by Australian troops who had routed the Italian Sabratha Division. Mellenthin formed the HQ personnel into a battle group and held off the Australians until German reinforcements arrived. He spent September and October of 1942 in a military hospital at Garmisch, Germany, recovering from exhaustion and amoebic dysentery.

Eastern Front

Mellenthin was next posted as Chief of Staff of the 48th Panzer Corps, on the Eastern Front in the Soviet Union. He served with 48th Panzer Corps from November 1942 to May 1944, participating in the battles following the encirclement of Stalingrad, and was in frequent radio contact with Paulus, the commanding general at Stalingrad.

Mellenthin remained with 48th Panzer Corps through the Battle of Kursk, the Battle of Kiev, and the spring 1944 battles in western Ukraine, including the battle for Tarnopol. During the first days of the Lvov-Sandomierz Operation, in July 1944, 48th Panzer Corps failed to relieve the Brody encirclement.

In August 1944, during the later stages of the battles in western Ukraine and south-eastern Poland, several German commanders were moved; Mellenthin followed General Hermann Balck when Balck was promoted from 48th Panzer Corps to the command of the 4th Panzer Army. During this time, the Soviet Marshal Konev's forces pressed the German forces behind the San river in south-eastern Poland, creating a bridgehead that became one of the springboards for the Vistula-Oder offensive in January 1945.

Western Front

In September 1944, Balck was promoted to command Army Group G in eastern France, and again Mellenthin went with him. They served there until November 1944, seeing fighting in Lorraine and Alsace, including the at Nancy, Metz, and Arracourt. In early December 1944, Balck was relieved of command by Hitler for "unauthorized retreat", and Mellenthin was retired to the OKW Officers’ Pool. General Heinz Guderian, then Chief of Staff of the German Army, interceded for him and he was restored to duty in late December.

On December 28, Mellenthin was given command of 9th Panzer Division, whose previous commander, Elverfeldt, had been wounded. 9th Panzer was then engaged in the Battle of the Bulge, fighting just north of Bastogne. Mellenthin commanded 9th Panzer through the remainder of the battle, and until February, when Elverfeldt recovered and returned. This was Mellenthin's only command assignment in his career.

From March to May 1945 he was chief of staff of 5th Panzer Army under General Hasso von Manteuffel, defending western Germany against US and British forces in the Ruhr region and around Cologne.

During the eastward retreat he was captured by the British at Höxter on the Weser River, on May 3, 1945.

Later life

Mellenthin spent two and a half years in prison, during which time he talked with many of his fellow inmates about the events of the war, and took notes. He professed ignorance of Nazi activities, writing that "not until we were behind barbed wire did we learn of the misdeeds of the Supreme Authority, deeds which shook us to the core and made our cheeks burn with shame", as he wrote in his memoirs. After his release, Mellenthin emigrated with his family to South Africa, where he later became the local director of Lufthansa. He died in Johannesburg in 1997.

Books and memoirs

Mellenthin's book Panzerschlachten, translated into English as Panzer Battles, documents all the campaigns in which he participated with substantial detail. Historians Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davis have characterized Mellenthin's work as part of the 'exculpatory memoirs' genre that feed the revisionist narrative, alongside books by Erich von Manstein, Heinz Guderian, Hans Rudel and Hans von Luck.

The reliability of his Panzer Battles (1971) has been called into question over the years. Critics point out that Mellenthin tends to downplay German failures, while focusing exclusively on successes. His adversaries on the Eastern Front are consistently depicted in racial terms:

Russian soldiers' mental sluggishness makes them quite insensible to losses. The Russian soldier values his own life no more than that of his comrades... Life is not precious to him. He is immune to the most incredible hardships.

Mellenthin asserts that this was owing to the fact that many of the Red Army soldiers were "Asiatics dragged from the deepest recesses of the Soviet Empire." He continues:

The Russian soldier is essentially a primitive being. [...] He lacks any true religious or moral balance, and his moods alter between bestial cruelty and genuine kindness.

Why then did the technically proficient and presumably racially superior Germans lose to the 'subhuman Russians', ask Smelser and Davies. Mellenthin blames the 'endless waves of men and tanks which surged around and finally submerged the German forces.'

Mellenthin's books and memoirs include:

• Panzer Battles: A Study of the Employment of Armor in the Second World War. First Ballantine Books Edition (1971). New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-24440-0
• German Generals of World War II: As I Saw Them (1977).
• NATO Under Attack (1984) (co-authored)

References

Bibliography

Military offices
Preceded by Generalleutnant Harald Freiherr von Elverfeldt	Commander of 9th Panzer Division 28 December 1944 – February 1945	Succeeded by Generalleutnant Harald Freiherr von Elverfeldt