Field Marshal Erich von Manstein
Erich von Manstein was probably Germany's most capable operational commander of the Second World War and was convicted of war crimes. Born in 1887 in Berlin as Erich von Lewinski, he was given at birth to an aunt and uncle, both from military families, and joined the Guards in 1906. He served on both fronts in the First World War and stayed in the small Reichswehr, rising as a staff officer. His decisive contribution came in 1940. The general staff's plan for attacking France was a repetition of 1914 through Belgium, which the Allies expected. Manstein proposed instead the main armoured thrust through the Ardennes to the Channel, cutting off the Allied armies that had advanced into Belgium. He was moved to a corps command to get him out of the way, and reached Hitler, who adopted the plan. It worked in six weeks. He took Sevastopol in 1942, was made a field marshal, and commanded the failed relief of Stalingrad. His counterstroke at Kharkov in early 1943, which destroyed a Soviet advance after the Sixth Army's surrender, is studied as a model of mobile defence. He argued repeatedly for elastic defence and for freedom of manoeuvre, and Hitler dismissed him in March 1944. He was tried by a British court in 1949 on charges including the murder of Jewish civilians and the passing on of the Commissar Order, convicted on nine counts, and released in 1953. He advised the new Bundeswehr and shaped the postwar myth of the clean Wehrmacht through his memoirs. He died in 1973.
- Lived: 1887 CE – 1973 CE
- Nationality: German
- Roles: field_marshal
