"HQ Army Group B – 1944" Topic

"The detailed organisation of Rommel's Head-quarters, i.e., the Offizierstellenbesetzung des Oberkommandos der Heeresgruppe B. Here are details of the list of the members of the Headquarters, prepared by the HQ adjutant on 15 May 1944. There were changes after that date, one of the most major alterations being the dissolution of the Quartermaster Division (Oberquartiermeister Abteilung) under Colonel Heckel at the end of May 1944, just a few days before the invasion. But probably the most important happening among the staff was the arrival of General Hans Speidel, to take over from Alfred Gause as Chief of Staff on 15 April 1944. As has already been mentioned this was basically because of domestic problems which had occurred between Lucie Rommel and Gause and his wife who had been staying with her after their own house had been bombed. Matters came to a head when Gause gave the faithful old Captain Hermann Aldinger a dressing-down for arriving late for work in the garden – Rommel had given his adjutant the task of directing the landscaping of the new garden – while Frau Gause had got more and more on Frau Rommel's nerves. Eventually she could stand it no longer and wrote to Rommel demanding that he replace Gause. Uncharacteristically Rommel, to quote historian David Irving, who says in Trail of the Fox that he ‘ … meekly complied, writing to her on 17 March: "Let's draw a line underneath it all… I am going to … Of course, it's a tough decision for me to have to change my chief at a time like this."‘

Chief of Staff. The new Chief of Staff was in fact the perfect man for the job. A bespectacled academic, his aesthetic, almost professorial, exterior belied his undoubted ability as a fighting soldier of some experience, although, as we shall see, this was not a view held by everyone. General Dr Hans Speidel was born on 28 October 1897 in Metzingen, Württemberg, so he was a Swabian like Rommel which gave them an instant rapport. He had joined the army on 30 November 1914, seen active service during the Great War in the same brigade as Rommel and had been accepted into the Reichsheer post-war. In 1932 he had taken ‘leave of absence' from soldiering to become a Doctor of Philosophy and then a teacher and professor at Göttingen University. In 1933 he was Assistant Military Attaché in Paris. In September 1939 he had been the la of 33rd Infantry Division, then la of IX Army Corps. He then served on von Küchler's staff in Eighteenth Army during the invasion of the Low Countries. He became COS to Otto von Stülpnagel in Paris 1940-1, then served on Fifth Army's Staff in 1942 and was COS of Eighth Army in Russia in 1943 as a Major-General. It was while he was serving in Russia during Eighth Army's difficult and heroic withdrawal, that Hitler had personally presented him with the Knight's Cross. He became Rommel's Chief of Staff in April 1944 and the two men quickly established a harmonious working relationship – despite the fact that Jodl (at OKW) had warned Speidel prior to his joining Army Group B to beware of Rommel's pessimism which he described as his ‘African sickness' (Afrikanische Krankheit)\ Speidel was also one of the most hard-working German officers as far as trying to arrange an armistice with the West. He knew of, and was in touch with, many of the leaders of the conspiracy to over-throw Hitler, but was not actually involved in any of the murder plots. He also involved Rommel in a very minor way in the subterfuge. Arrested on 7 September 1944, after refusing to destroy Paris, and accused of being implicated in the plot against Hitler, he was brought before a Court of Honour on 4 October, but managed to baffle even the most searching Gestapo questioning despite the fact that he had actually been involved. Speidel not only successfully protested his innocence, but also managed not to betray anyone, so despite everything – including Keitel's saying that Hitler believed Speidel to be guilty – he was declared innocent and released after some seven months in custody. So after the war he was able to tell the Allies exactly what happened. Also a holder of the German Cross in Gold, Speidel was made a Lieutenant-General in the Bundeswehr in 1955 and promoted to full General two years later to become C-in-C NATO Ground Forces…"
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