“Make peace you fools!”  growled the old soldier into the telephone. It was 5:40 PM on July 1, 1944, in Paris, France. The man who spoke those words was Germany’s most senior, most respected, and highest ranking field commander - Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt. He was the Commander-in-Chief of Wehrmacht forces in the West.
    The Field Marshal was a product of Prussian nobility. Military service had been a tradition with the von Rundstedt family for four centuries. His father and two uncles were officers in the Prussian Army during the Franco-Prussian War. His brothers were officers in the German Army. Of all of the German generals in World War II, Field Marshal von Rundstedt was the most admired by fellow officers of both the Wehrmacht and the Allied armies. Field Marshal Eric von Manstein, who had served as his chief-of-staff in the Polish and French campaigns, said that, “As an exponent of grand tactics he was brilliant - a talented soldier who grasped the essentials of any problem in an instant. Indeed, he would concern himself with nothing else, being supremely indifferent to minor detail.”
    Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt was born on December 12, 1875. His mother was of French Huguenot descent. After completing high school, he joined an infantry regiment in Kassel. In January 1902 he married Luise von Goetz from Kassel. A year later, their only child, Hans Gerd was born.
    The outbreak of the Great War found him holding the rank of Captain in Alexander von Kluck’s First Army. In the German invasion of France and Belgium, under the “Schlieffen Plan,” the First Army was on the extreme right flank of the invading forces, closest to the English Channel. By the time of the Armistice, von Rundstedt had achieved the rank of Major and was Chief-of-Staff of a Corps. In between, he had served on the Russian Front, and in the administration of the military government of Warsaw.
    Even with the size of the post World War I German Army reduced to 100,000, his advance was rapid. On November 1, 1927, he was promoted to Major-General.  By 1935, only Colonel-General Werner von Blomberg outranked him. In January 1936 he was sent to London to represent the German Army at the funeral of King George V.  It didn’t hurt that he was fluent in both English and French.
    Von Rundstedt received his promotion to Colonel-General on March 1, 1938, and retired in November. He was almost 63. At the time of his retirement he was the highest ranking officer in the German Army. Retirement lasted less than a year.  He was recalled to duty and given command of Army Group South in the coming invasion of Poland. In the short war against Poland, Army Group South captured over a half-million Polish soldiers, 1,400 guns and 96 tanks, at a cost of 31,000 casualties.  The Army Group’s commander was awarded the Knights’ Cross on September 30, 1939. For a very brief time, he served as Military Governor of Poland.
    This week, 70 years ago, Colonel-General von Rundstedt was appointed commander of Army Group A and began planning for the offensive in the West. At that time, the German plan of attack was very similar to the one which had failed in the First World War. But General von Manstein had a better idea, and after many delays, and much lobbying by Generals von Rundstedt and von Manstein, and some international intrigue, the Wehrmacht adopted the von Manstein Plan. It called for the decisive blow to be delivered by Army Group A, through the Ardennes Forest, in Belgium and Luxembourg. It worked to perfection. The Panzers of General von Rundstedt’s Army Group A, under the command of General Paul Ewald von Kleist, drove through the “impassable” Ardennes Forest, crossed the Muese River, turned north and raced for the English Channel, splitting the Allied forces.  
    On July 19, 1940, in a speech to the Reichstag, Adolf Hitler honored General von Rundstedt (and eleven other generals), with the rank of Field Marshal. They were presented with their batons at a ceremony at the Chancellory in Berlin, on August 14, 1940. In the army, only Walther von Brauchitsch and Wilhelm Keitel outranked him. He would remain the highest ranking field commander.
    After serving as Commander-in-Chief West during the winter, he was ordered to Breslau, in Silesia, to assume command of Army Group South in preparation for Operation Barbarossa. In addition to German soldiers, his command included two Romanian Armies, an Italian corps, two Hungarian divisions and a Slovakian division. Army Group South would attack the U.S.S.R. in the Ukraine.
    Army Group South captured Kiev and 450,000 Soviet soldiers on September 19, 1941. Odessa surrendered to the Romanians a month later. Poltava was occupied and von Rundstedt made it his headquarters. Tagenrog, on the Sea of Azov, fell on October 17, 1941. Kharkov was captured on October 24. Most of the Crimean Peninsula was occupied.   
    In the first of November, the Field Marshal advised a halt for the winter. He was told that, before Army Group South halted, it would have to reach Voronezh, on the Don River, Stalingrad, on the Volga River, and Maikop in the Caucasus. All were hundreds of miles away, in three different directions. Von Rundstedt said, “...we laughed aloud when we heard that.”
    On November 13, 1941, the temperature dropped to -20° Celsius. About that time the Field Marshal, who was a heavy smoker, apparently suffered a mild heart attack.
    On November 21, 1941, Rostov-on-the-Don was captured, but the Red Army mounted vicious counterattacks, until finally, on the 28th, von Rundstedt ordered the troops to abandon the city and retire behind the River Mius for the winter. When Hitler learned of the retirement order, he became furious and countermanded it. When the Field Marshal received the Fürher’s order, he replied, in writing, by asking that it be canceled, saying, “Should confidence in my leadership no longer exist, I beg to request someone be substituted who enjoys the necessary confidence of the Supreme Command.” Within the hour, he had been replaced by Field Marshal von Reichenau.              
    On December 3, 1941, Hitler visited the Army Group headquarters at Poltava, excused his order on the grounds that he had “misunderstood the situation,” and  asked the Field Marshal to see to his health and return to service. Upon his return home, on his 66th birthday, he was presented with a cheque from the Fürher for 250,000 Reichsmarks.
    He was summoned to see the Fürher on March 10, 1942, and appointed Commander-in-Chief, West, with his headquarters in Paris. For the next two years he would wait. Although he described the Atlantic Wall as, “...an illusion, staged by propaganda to deceive the German people and the Allies,” he suggested using Soviet POWs in its construction because they were “satisfied with very little,” easy to “feed and house,” and, “...if he does not behave, he can simply be shot.”
    While in Paris, he began to drink more. It was arranged to have his son (who had been drafted at the beginning of the war), attached to his staff. His drinking got so bad, that on May 5, 1943, he was sent to a facility at Bad Tölz to take the cure. After a month there, he spent some time with his wife.
    After the Italian surrender, in September 1943, von Rundstedt had to deal with the Italian Fourth Army which was occupying part of France. Some of the units volunteered to remain on the German side.  The Field Marshal remarked that they had been, “...a most unwelcome addition...” because of their poor equipment, training, and leadership. They were guilty of widespread looting, which, of course, made the French madder, and therefore more difficult to control.
    Finally, on June 6, 1944, the waiting ended. Five days later, von Rundstedt  warned Field Marshal Keitel, Chief of the Wehrmacht  High Command in Berlin, that unless the front was stabilized, “fundamental decisions” would have to be made. When Kietel complained about the way the battle was going, Von Rundstedt snarled, “If you think you can do any better come down here and lead this filth yourself!”  Von Rundstedt’s request to withdraw troops behind the Orne River, in Normandy, was refused on July 1, 1944, at 5:40 PM. He  immediately telephoned Field Marshal Keitel, in Berlin. By this time the Red Army had launched its summer offensive which had utterly destroyed Army Group Center, recaptured Minsk, and torn a gaping hole in the Eastern Front defences. After explaining the deteriorating situation to Keitel, Keitel wailed, “What shall we do?  What shall we do?” Von Rundstedt replied, “Make peace, you fools!  What else can you do?” and hung up. He was relieved of his command the next day.
    After the July Bomb Plot to kill Hitler failed, a military Court of Honor was convened, over which von Rundstedt was appointed to preside. Its task was to investigate the involvement of the Army officers in the plot to kill Hitler. If the Court found an officer involved, he would be dismissed. Once dismissed from the service, he came within the jurisdiction of a civilian “court.”  Proceedings in those “courts” were very brief.
    On September 1, von Rundstedt was summoned to Fürher Headquarters, where Hitler told him: “Field Marshal, I would like to place the Western Front in your hands again.” The two men did not like each other, but Hitler treated him, “...with unwonted diffidence and respect.” On his part, von Rundstedt, “...sat there motionless and monosyllabic.”  
    Planning had already begun for Operation Watch on the Rhine, which resulted in the “Battle of the Bulge,” but von Rundstedt was not informed until late October. After he was told, he took no part in the planning, but merely passed along the Fürher’s orders. Even though the offensive was a failure, the Field Marshal was awarded the Swords to his Knight’s Cross, on February 18, 1945.  
    Three weeks later, disaster struck, when American GIs captured the Ludendorff railway bridge over the Rhine River at Remagen.  For the third, and last time, the Field Marshal was relieved of command. On March 11, he had his final encounter with the Fürher.  Hitler presented him with the Swords and thanked him for his loyalty. The Field Marshal and his wife and their son made their way to the sanitarium at Bad Tölz, to seek treatment of the field Marshal’s leg injury. On May 1, 1945, a patrol from the 36th Texas Division, led by 2nd Lt. Joseph E. Burke, captured the old Field Marshal. He was the Division’s 30,000th  prisoner.
    In July, he was transferred to England where he was reunited with his son.  Poland had already accused him of, “...mass murder, execution of persons without trial, and other crimes.” In October, France also accused him of war crimes and demanded his extradition for trial. Two years later the U.S.S.R. would also demand his extradition.
    In June of 1946, he was transported to Nuremburg, to testify in the first war crimes trial. He was returned to England in August. On January 30, 1947, his son was released and reunited with his wife and children and mother. The Field Marshal was again returned to Germany in March, for another appearance as a witness, at a war crimes trial. After a month, he was again returned to England.
    On August 28, 1948, the British government accused him of, “the maltreatment and killing of civilians and prisoners of war, including political commissars, killing of hostages, illegal employment of prisoners of war, deportation of forced labour to Germany, economic exploitation of territories occupied by troops under your command, looting of objects of cultural and artistic value from territory occupied by such troops, mass execution of Jews, general devastation and annihilation of territories which was not justified by military necessity and other war crimes, still to be specified.”
    He and Field Marshal von Manstein were formally indicted on January 1, 1949.  However, the British Cabinet ordered, on May 6, 1949, that because of his ill health, he be released. He lived with his brother until August 1951, when he began receiving a small pension. He and his wife then rented a three-room third floor apartment in Hannover. The old Field Marshal died there on February 24, 1953. The preacher said, at his funeral, “We are burying the last of the great Prussians.”

Mr. Wimbrow writes from Ocean City, Maryland, where he practices law representing those persons accused of criminal and traffic offenses, and those persons who have suffered a personal injury through no fault of their own.