Günther Adolf Ferdinand von Kluge (30 October 1882 – 19 August 1944) was a German Generalfeldmarschall (Field Marshal) during World War II. Kluge held commands on the Eastern and Western Fronts, until his suicide in connection with the 20 July plot.
He commanded the 4th Army of the Wehrmacht during the invasion of Poland in 1939 and the Battle of France in 1940, earning a promotion to . Kluge went on to command the 4th Army in Operation Barbarossa (the invasion of the Soviet Union) and the Battle for Moscow in 1941. Amid the crisis of the Soviet counter-offensive in December 1941, Kluge was promoted to command Army Group Centre replacing Field Marshal Fedor von Bock. Several members of the German military resistance to Adolf Hitler served on his staff, including Henning von Tresckow. Kluge was aware of the plotters' activities but refused to offer his support unless Hitler was killed. His command on the Eastern Front lasted until October 1943 when Kluge was badly injured in a car accident.
Following a lengthy recuperation, Kluge was appointed OB West (Supreme Commander West) in occupied France in July 1944, after his predecessor, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, was dismissed for defeatism. Kluge's forces were unable to stop the momentum of the Allied invasion of Normandy, and he began to realise that the war in the West was lost. Although Kluge was not an active conspirator in the 20 July plot, in the aftermath of the failed coup he committed suicide on 19 August 1944, after having been recalled to Berlin for a meeting with Hitler. Kluge was replaced by Field Marshal Walter Model.
Early life and career Kluge was born on 30 October 1882 in Posen, then in the German state of Prussia (now in western Poland). His father, Max von Kluge, was from an aristocratic Prussian military family. A distinguished commander, Max was a lieutenant general in the German Army who served in the First World War. He married Elise Kühn-Schuhmann in 1881. Günther von Kluge was one of two children, having a younger brother named Wolfgang (1892–1976). Wolfgang served in both world wars, rising to the rank of lieutenant general by 1943, and was commander of Fortress Dunkirk between July and September 1944.
In 1901, Günther von Kluge – sometimes called Hans Günther von Kluge or Der kluge Hans ("Clever Hans") after an alleged performing horse—was commissioned in the German Army's 46th Field Artillery Regiment. He served on the General Staff between 1910 and 1918, reaching the rank of captain on the Western Front during the First World War. He was wounded at Verdun, and later became a captain on the General Staff. He remained in the postwar Reichswehr (national army) during the Weimar era, becoming a colonel in 1930, major general in 1933, and lieutenant general a year later. He was von Brauchitsch's chief of staff in East Prussia in 1933, and was viewed as having subsequently "followed von Brauchitsch's star." On 1 April 1934, Kluge took command of the 6th Division in Münster. In 1935, Adolf Hitler's proclamation of the Wehrmacht—the enlarged German Army—precipitated Kluge's appointment to the 6th Corps and then the 6th Army Group, which subsequently became the 4th Army.
Kluge believed Hitler's "crude militarism" would lead Germany into disaster. During the Sudetenland Crisis, he was a member of a secret anti-war faction led by Ludwig Beck and Ernst von Weizsäcker, hoping to avoid armed conflict over the disputed territory. The crisis was averted by the Munich Agreement on 30 September 1938. Although he was privately critical of the Nazis, Kluge believed in the principle of Lebensraum and took pride in the rearmament of the Wehrmacht.
World War II Invasion of Poland Hitler approved of the German High Command's outline for invading Poland with two army groups during a military briefing on 26–27 April 1939. Kluge's 4th Army was assigned to Army Group North under Fedor von Bock. The Polish campaign commenced on 1 September, taking advantage of the country's long border with Germany. The 4th Army was to advance eastward toward the Corridor from West Pomerania to link with the 3rd Army; the port city of Danzig fell within the first day.
By the following day, apprehensions of a strong Polish defensive line along the Brda River had not materialised. The 4th Army crossed the river, sealing the Polish 9th Infantry Division, 27th Infantry Division, and the Pomeranian Cavalry Brigade in the Corridor. Kluge sent the 10th Panzer Division from his army across the Vistula River, meeting with the 3rd Army on 3 September. The 4th Army's XIX Panzer Corps (Heinz Guderian) captured the city of Brześć on 17 September after three days of fighting in the Battle of Brześć Litewski. Army Group North was informed of the Red Army's invasion of eastern Poland the same day and was directed to remain west of the Bug River. Brześć was turned over to the Soviet forces on 22 September. For his entrapment of Polish forces in the early stages of the invasion, Kluge earned Hitler's praise as one of his most brilliant commanders.
Battle of France
In preparation for Fall Gelb ("Case Yellow"), the invasion of France, Kluge and the 4th Army were transferred to Army Group A under the command of Gerd von Rundstedt. Hitler, still looking for an aggressive alternative to the original plan, approved Erich von Manstein's ideas, known as the Manstein Plan, following a meeting with them on 17 February 1940. The plan outlined that the 4th Army would contribute to an attack through the rugged Ardennes terrain of southern Belgium and Luxembourg to the Meuse River; Kluge entrusted the XV Army Corps, encompassing the 5th and 7th Panzer Divisions, to provide flank cover for Georg-Hans Reinhardt's corps by crossing the Meuse at Dinant.
Launched on 10 May, Case Yellow began successfully. Kluge's corps advanced rapidly, reaching the Meuse in two days. A river crossing, spearheaded by 7th Panzer commander Erwin Rommel, established a bridgehead on the west bank of the Meuse on 13 May and forced the French 9th Army into retreat. Kluge's forces—particularly the 7th Panzer Division—achieved a rapid breakthrough from their bridgehead in the following days; between 16 and 17 May Rommel captured 10,000 prisoners and 100 tanks, and wiped out the remainder of the French 9th Army at the expense of only 35 casualties. Overextended and well ahead of the army group, the 5th and 7th Panzer Divisions fended off a joint British-French counterattack near the town of Arras on 21 May.
After a conference with Hitler and Rundstedt, Kluge issued an order to his Panzer units to halt on 24 May, from Dunkirk—by then the possible escape route for the British Expeditionary Force. The two-day respite allowed the Allies to consolidate their manpower around Dunkirk and prepare for an evacuation. On 5 June, at the commencement of Fall Rot ("Case Red"), the second phase of the invasion plan, Kluge's 4th Army helped achieve the first breakthrough at Amiens and reached the Seine River on 10 June. Kluge's command and Rommel's generalship throughout the invasion led to his promotion to generalfeldmarschall (field marshal) on 19 July.
Invasion of the Soviet Union
At the opening of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, Kluge commanded the 4th Army in Army Group Centre. Army Group Centre (commanded by von Bock) also included the 9th Army ( Strauß), and two mobile formations, the 2nd Panzer Group (Heinz Guderian) and the 3rd Panzer Group (Hermann Hoth). On 29 June, Kluge ordered that enemy women in uniform were to be shot, in line with the Nazi ideological world view, which regarded female combatants as yet another manifestation of "barbaric" Bolshevism upending natural gender roles. The order was later rescinded and women in uniform were to be captured instead.: "Der Oberbefehlshaber der 4. Armee, Günther von Kluge, verfügte gleich im Juni 1941, dass feindliche Frauen in Uniform zu erschießen seien. Der Befehl wurde später zurückgezogen – Rotarmistinnen waren nun gefangen zu nehmen [...]." On 4 July, OKH subordinated the 2nd and the 3rd Panzer Groups to Kluge, to improve coordination between the fast-charging armoured spearheads and the slower infantry. The resulting formation provided unity on paper, but the Panzer-group commanders often bristled at Kluge's orders, and Guderian and Kluge detested each other. Kluge had to give up all but his two infantry corps; his other corps were assigned to the 2nd Army, which had been held in reserve.
Expecting a short war that would not necessitate the exploitation of Soviet labour for the German war-effort, the German High Command and military leaders did not make adequate preparations to house prisoners-of-war and civilian internees. In Kluge's area of command, 100,000 POWs and 40,000 civilians were herded into a small open-air camp in Minsk in July 1941. Amid deteriorating conditions and starvation in the camp, Organization Todt appealed to Kluge to release 10,000 skilled workers. Kluge declined, wishing to make the decisions regarding the prisoners himself.
The Nazis' Hunger Plan (one of the pillars of the war of annihilation against the Soviet Union), encouraged the largely to "live off the land". Looting, pillaging, and abuse of the civilian population was rampant, especially in the areas to the rear. In September 1941, Kluge issued an order to his troops aimed at restoring discipline. It stated that it was "high time to put a complete end to the unjustified methods of obtaining supplies, the raids, the plundering trips over vast distances, all the senseless and criminal activity". Kluge threatened harsh measures against those responsible, along with their superior commanders who failed to maintain discipline.
Battle of Moscow
During the German advance on Moscow in September to December 1941 (Operation Typhoon), Kluge had the 4th Panzer Group (Erich Hoepner) subordinated to the 4th Army. In early October, the 4th Panzer Group completed the encirclement at Vyazma. Much to Hoepner's displeasure, Kluge instructed him to stop the advance, as his units were needed to prevent break-outs of Soviet forces. Hoepner was confident that clearing the pocket and the advance on Moscow could be undertaken at the same time. He viewed Kluge's actions as interference, which led to friction and "clashes" with his superior, as he wrote in a letter home on 6 October. Hoepner did not seem to appreciate that his units were very short on fuel; the 11th Panzer Division reported having no fuel at all. Only the 20th Panzer Division was advancing towards Moscow amid deteriorating road-conditions.
On 17 November, the 4th Panzer Group again attacked towards Moscow with the V Army Corps of the 4th Army, as part of the continuation of Operation Typhoon by Army Group Centre. The panzer group and the army corps represented Kluge's best forces, most ready for offensive action. In two weeks' fighting, the German forces advanced ( per day). A lack of tanks, insufficient motor transport, and a precarious supply situation, along with tenacious Red Army resistance and the air superiority achieved by Soviet fighters, hampered the attack.
Facing pressure from the German High Command, Kluge finally committed his weaker south flank to the attack on 1 December. In the aftermath of the battle, Hoepner and Guderian blamed Kluge's slow commitment of the 4th Army's south flank to the attack for the German failure to reach Moscow. The historian, David Stahel, wrote that this assessment grossly overestimated the capabilities of Kluge's remaining forces. It also failed to appreciate the reality that Moscow was a metropolis and that German forces lacked the numbers to encircle it. With its outer defensive belt completed by 25 November, Moscow was a fortified position which the lacked the strength to take in a frontal assault. Further attacks were called off on 5 December; the Red Army launched its winter counter-offensive on the same day.
Army Group Centre