Friedrich Wilhelm (‘‘F. W.’’) von Mellenthin (pronounced Fon Mellenn-teen) was born in Breslau, Silesia (now Wroclaw, Poland) on August 30, 1904. His father, a professional army officer from Pomerania—the most Prussian of the Prussian provinces—could trace his ancestry back to 1225. His mother, Orlinda von Waldenburg von Mellenthin, was a great-granddaughter of Prince August of Prussia and a great-grandniece of Frederick the Great. His family looked upon military service as a calling, not a job. Naturally, F. W. was raised from the crib to be an officer. This traditional Prussian upbringing was continued by Orlinda even after her husband—Lieutenant Colonel Paul Henning von Mellenthin—was killed in action while directing artillery fire on the Western Front on June 29, 1918. F. W. later referred to his mother as his ‘‘guiding star.’’ Two of her three sons became generals.
F. W. grew up on the family estates of Mellenthin and Lienichen in Pomerania. He graduated from high school (Real-Gymnasium) in Breslau and enlisted as a lancer (private) in the 7th Cavalry Regiment, because there were no officer slots available in the 100,000-man or ‘‘Treaty’’ army. Although F. W. later recalled the next 11 years were the best of his military life, the first four (when he was an enlisted
man) were tough. After 18 months, he was promoted to corporal, and, as a Fahnenjunker, was sent to officers’ training courses at the Infantry School at Ohrdruf and the Cavalry School at Hanover. Finally, on February 1, 1928, he was commissioned second lieutenant in the 7th Cavalry. He spent the next seven years with his regiment.
Although he was short—only 5'6"—F. W. von Mellenthin was slim, intelligent, urbane, and full of energy. He was a fine equestrian and won many golden trophies for horse racing, steeplechasing, and dressage. Even as an octogenarian, he spent at least two hours a day on horseback.
On March 2, 1932, he married Ingeborg von Aulock, the daughter of a major. She would give him two sons and three daughters.
Mellenthin was very happy in the 7th Cavalry, but nevertheless accepted an appointment to the War Academy on October 1, 1935, where he began his General Staff training. (Along with more than 1,000 other officers, he had taken the week-long Wehrkreis qualifying examination and had finished in the upper 15 percent that were selected for General Staff training. About two thirds of these survivors were cut before the course was completed.) He finished the two-year course in the fall of 1937 and, as a captain, was assigned to the staff of Wehrkreis III in Berlin. Its commander was General of Infantry Erwin von Witzleben, of whom Mellenthin was very fond. Shortly after his posting, Mellenthin became his Ic. He was also involved in several special events, such as military parades and ceremonies put on to honor various foreign dignitaries. He also served for a few weeks as army liaison officer to Konrad Henlein, the leader of the Sudeten Germans. After the annexation of the Sudetenland, Mellenthin returned to Berlin, where he was largely responsible for planning a parade honoring Hitler’s 50th birthday. By now, ‘‘I was tired of running a military circus,’’ the young Prussian recorded. He arranged to return to a line unit and was ordered to report to the 5th Panzer Regiment of the 5th Light Division on October 1, 1939. Unfortunately, World War II began on September 1, and his transfer was cancelled.
Mellenthin served as III Corps Ic during the Polish campaign and during its redeployment to the Western Front near Saarbruecken. That winter, he was sent back to what had been Poland, where (as a major) he became Ia of the 197th Infantry Division, then training at Posen. This division was later transferred to the Western Front, where it was assigned to Army Group C, which performed a purely secondary role in the French campaign of 1940. After France surrendered, the 197th was send to Breda, the Netherlands, where it performed occupation duties.
After a few weeks duty in Holland, which he thoroughly enjoyed, von Mellenthin was transferred to the 1st Army Headquarters in Lorraine, where he was named chief intelligence officer. His commander was his old boss, Erwin von Witzleben, who was now a field marshal, and who no doubt arranged his transfer. Mellenthin lived in a Gothic castle in Nancy and again very much enjoyed his assignment. He noted in his classic book, Panzer Battles, that ‘‘It is a matter of regret that Gestapo officials soon raised a barrier between the occupation troops and the civil population.’’ He found that many prominent Frenchmen held ‘‘a genuine desire’’ to co-operate in the establishment of a United Europe but were soon alienated by the Nazis.
In the winter of 1940–41, Mellenthin worked on plans for the rapid occupation of Vichy, France, which was connected to the plan to rapidly send German forces to Spain, so that they could occupy Gibraltar. Generalissomo Franco, the Spanish dictator, would have none of it, however, so Mellenthin arranged to have a brief period of temporary duty with an Italian cavalry regiment at Genova. In late March 1941 he
was named Ic of the 2nd Army, which was then assembling in Austria for the invasion of Yugoslavia.
The Germans invaded Yugoslavia and Greece on April 6, 1941. Although the Greeks (who were aided by the British) put up stiff resistance, the Yugoslavian forces collapsed almost immediately. Belgrade fell on April 12 and the Yugoslavs surrendered five days later. Mellenthin called the operation ‘‘virtually a military parade.’’
After the capitulation, Mellenthin was named German liaison officer to the Italian 2nd Army, which was on occupation duty along the Dalmatian coast in the Balkans. Here, F. W. was amazed by the obsolete equipment of the Italian Army, as well as the low standard of training he found among the junior officers. This new job did not last long, however; at the end of May, he was ordered to report to Munich. Here he joined the Gause’s special staff, which was then forming in Bavaria, where he was the new Ic. (Later, this became Staff, Panzer Army Afrika.) En route, he took a short leave and visited his ancestral estates, where his wife had moved along with their five children, to get them away from the bombing of Berlin. On June 11, Mellenthin, along with General Gause and Lieutenant Colonel Siegfried Westphal, the Ia of the panzer group, flew from Rome to Tripoli. On the trip over, they got a view of things to come: several times they were forced to avoid British airplanes by flying at sea level. Then they met with Erwin Rommel.
Mellenthin had met Rommel in Berlin in 1938, but he was in no way prepared for what he faced working for the Desert Fox: ‘‘Rommel was not an easy man to serve; he spared those around him as little as he spared himself. An iron constitution and nerves of steel were needed to work with Rommel, but I must emphasize that although Rommel was sometimes embarrassingly outspoken . . . once he was convinced of the efficiency and loyalty of those in his immediate entourage, he never had a harsh word for them.’’ Rommel was by every account a hard man for whom to work. He could be very rude to his staff and scathing to senior commanders (especially Italians), but never so to enlisted men or prisoners of war. His men (including lower-ranking Italians) loved him, but this was not always the case with his staff and immediate subordinates. Mellenthin, however, recalled that ‘‘I was to learn to love and honor [him] as one of the outstanding generals of our times, the Seydlitz of the panzer corps, and perhaps the most daring and thrustful commander in German military history.’’
Mellenthin served Rommel for 15 months, from June 1941 to September 15, 1942. ‘‘He was the toughest taskmaster I’ve ever known. He spared no one, least of all himself,’’ von Mellenthin recalled.
During the actual fighting, Rommel was often out of touch with his staff for days. When he did return to headquarters, ‘‘He would arrive from the field covered with dust and grime, burst into the command
post, and gruffly demand, ‘Wie ist die Lage?’’’ [What is the situation?] To which Westphal and I would instantly respond with a crisp 5-minute summary.’’ It would take Rommel no more than 30 seconds to analyze the facts and issue standing orders for an entire week. ‘‘Very seldom did these need to be modified,’’ Mellenthin marveled.
Mellenthin fought in all of the battles of Panzer Army Afrika from the Siege of Tobruk to the 1st Battle of El Alamein. He and his staff badly underestimated the strength of the British 8th Army before the Battle of the Gazala Line, largely because of British aerial parity (which limited the effectiveness of Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft), excellent camouflage techniques, commendable radio security (alas vastly superior to that of the American army, even today), and armored car superiority, which prevented the German reconnaissance battalions from gaining a true picture of the situation. Panzer Army intelligence also failed to detect the presence of a large number of Grant tanks (which were superior to any German tank in the desert in 1942), underestimated both the length and depth of the British minefields, failed to note the existence of the Knightsbridge box (and its garrison, the 201st Guards Brigade), and failed to locate and identify two armored and three infantry brigades, including the 3rd Indian Motor Brigade, southwest of Bir Hacheim. Mellenthin later noted that perhaps this was fortunate
because had he known the true strength of the 8th Army, even Rommel might not have attacked it. Rommel did not hold any of these failures against von Mellenthin, however, and promoted him to chief
of operations on June 1, 1942, after both Gause and Westphal had been wounded. With Rommel’s approval, Mellenthin was promoted to lieutenant colonel on April 1, 1942.
Mellenthin more than redeemed himself during the 1st Battle of El Alamein. The British commander, General Sir Claude Auchinleck, abandoned the Qaret el Abd box on the southern part of the front to lure Rommel into committing his armored reserve to that sector. For once, Rommel fell into the trap. On July 9, 1942, he concentrated the 21st Panzer and 90th Light Divisions for an attack on the British left (southern) flank, as well as the Littorio Armored, one of the best Italian divisions. Naturally, being Rommel, he went with them and carried his chief of staff with him, leaving Mellenthin in charge at army headquarters. Then, on July 10, the 9th Australian Division launched a major attack against the Italian Sabratha Infantry Division, on the panzer army’s northern (coastal) flank. Sabratha soon collapsed altogether.
Panzer Army Headquarters was behind the Axis northern (coastal) flank, i.e., right behind Sabratha. Mellenthin watched with alarm as hundreds of Italians fled past him to the rear. He soon learned that all
of the Italian artillery had been captured. His first inclination, of course, was to move the headquarters to the rear as well, saving its valuable documents and irreplaceable equipment. Mellenthin, however, realized that there was nothing in reserve and that the coastal road had to be blocked or the entire panzer army would be threatened with annihilation. He organized the staff into an ad hoc battle group and reinforced it with some nearby anti-aircraft guns, as well as some German infantry replacements who were passing by. With this improvised unit, the chief of operations managed to check the Australian attack, although valuable personnel were killed in the process. (Among them were Lieutenant Seebohm and most of his Wireless Intercept Unit.)
Before the Australians could reorganize and launch another attack, Rommel rushed up from the south with his personal battle group (the Kampfstaffel) and a battle group from the 15th Panzer Division and struck them in the rear. Although he was checked and the Australians managed to inflict heavy casualties on the Trento Infantry Division, the main body of the German 382nd Infantry Regiment of the 164th Light Afrika Division arrived that afternoon, and the panzer army was saved. In his Papers, Rommel praised Mellenthin by name for halting the Australian attack, something he rarely did.
Colonel Siegfried Westphal returned from the hospital during the night of August 30–31 and resumed his duties as Ia. Mellenthin was now an excess officer and was no longer essential to the staff of Panzer Army Afrika, as Major Zolling had replaced him as Ic. Additionally, Mellenthin had been suffering from amoebic dysentery for months and was by now a very sick man. (This disease is often fatal, even today.) The medical officer had already recommended that he return to Europe. On September 9, he reported ‘‘off duty’’ to Rommel and left North Africa as few days later. He never saw Erwin Rommel again.
To Lieutenant Colonel von Mellenthin, who had just spent 15 months in the Sahara Desert, the next several in the hospital at Garmisch in the Bavarian Alps seemed like heaven. The German Tropical Institute had developed excellent methods for combating the amoebas, and F. W.’s health soon improved. The situation on the Eastern Front, however, was deteriorating. The German 6th Army under General of Panzer Troops Friedrich Paulus bogged down in street fighting in Stalingrad, and on November 19, 1942, the Red Army launched a huge counteroffensive aimed at encircling the 6th. The Reds brushed aside Paulus’s reserve, the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps, and the Russians surrounded 240,000 German and Romanian soldiers in the Stalingrad pocket on November 23.
With a moderate degree of justification, Adolf Hitler held the commander of the XXXXVIII Panzer, Lieutenant General Ferdinand Heim, responsible for the disaster. He relieved Heim of his command on November 20 and had him thrown into prison without a trial. Colonel Werner Friebe, the chief of staff, was also sacked. They were replaced by General of Panzer Troops Otto von Knobelsdorff and Lieutenant Colonel Friedrich William von Mellenthin, respectively.
Mellenthin fought in most of the major battles on the southern sector of the Russian Front from November 29, 1942, until September 14, 1944. He performed brilliantly in desperate fighting under Knobelsdorff and his successor, General of Panzer Troops Hermann Balck, and left us a wonderful account of these battles in his classic book, Panzer Battles, which has been in almost continuous print since the University of Oklahoma Press first published it in 1956. He served as acting commander of the 8th Panzer Division during the Battle of Brody (July 1944) and was chief of staff of the 4th Panzer Army under Balck from August 15 to September 14, 1944. When Balck was named commanderin- chief of Army Group G in September 1944, he took Mellenthin with him to the Western Front. Mellenthin was promoted to colonel on May 1, 1943.
Balck and Mellenthin led Army Group G (with the understrength 1st and 19th Armies) brilliantly during the Lorraine campaign in the Vosges against the U.S. 7th and 3rd Armies and the French 1st Army. Army Group G had been severely mauled during the retreat from France. The 19th Army, for example, lost 1,316 of its 1,480 guns during the retreat, and only 10 of its tanks survived. Balck and his chief of staff were able to hastily rebuild it (and least partially) and were greatly aided by OB West, whose chief of staff was Siegfried Westphal, Mellenthin’s old friend from Africa. Despite odds stacked heavily against them (some of their panzer divisions were down to five operational tanks), they managed to hold their lines—in part because of Allied supply difficulties. They even checked Patton in the 1st Battle of Metz, delayed the Allied attack on the West Wall for months, and were largely responsible for enabling OB West to launch the Ardennes Offensive on December 16, 1944. They were unable to hold off the Allies forever, however, and could not prevent Patton from taking Metz (on November 21) or the French from taking Strasbourg (November 24).
Meanwhile, Colonel General Heinz Guderian, the ‘‘father’’ of the blitzkrieg, had been acting chief of the General Staff since July 21, 1944. In late November, he sent an emissary to Headquarters, Army Group G, with some gratuitous advice on how to employ artillery. Compared with the Americans and their allies, however, Army Group G had only a few guns, and they had only a few rounds each. Mellenthin did not appreciate the interference. ‘‘Our problem that late in the war was not how to employ artillery, but where to get the guns and ammunition... We were critically short on everything.’’ He spoke bluntly—too bluntly—to the OKH representative, who returned to Zossen and complained to Guderian that Mellenthin had insulted and then ignored him.
Now Guderian was upset but, unlike Mellenthin, he had the power to do something about it. He summoned the Pomeranian to Zossen on November 28, gave him a thorough tongue-lashing, and placed him under house arrest.
‘‘I said nothing in my own defense, absolutely nothing,’’ Mellenthin recalled. He knew that Guderian was famous for his explosive temper and, if he said anything at all, it would only make the situation worse. Ironically, Mellenthin’s last promotion—to major general—had already been approved. It became effective on December 1, 1944, while he was still locked up. He was then sacked as chief of staff of Army Group G. He returned to Balck’s headquarters on December 5, 1944, but only to hand over his duties to his successor, Major General Helmut Staedke.
In Panzer Battles, Mellenthin implied (but did not explicitly state) that Hitler was to blame for his relief, dismissal from the General Staff, and arrest. He told the whole story to U.S. Lieutenant Colonel Verner R. Carlson when that officer flew to South Africa just to visit with him in the late 1980s. Although he did not lie in Panzer Battles, he did not tell the entire truth either. Why is not known.
Mellenthin’s arrest turned out to be a blessing in disguise. He had the opportunity to visit his family (now living in the Warthegau) and spent Christmas with them—the only Christmas of the war he got to spend at home. Then he got them out of there because the Red Army was not far off. Three weeks later, it broke through the thin German line and overran the Warthegau and much of Silesia and East Prussia, leaving countless tales of rape, murder, and horror in their wake. Mellenthin meanwhile relocated his wife and five children to temporary quarters with friends north of Berlin.
After Guderian cooled down, he decided to reemploy Mellenthin. This was probably because of Guderian’s long-standing friendship with Hermann Balck, who had served as a regimental commander under Guderian when he broke the back of the French Army in 1940. (Guderian speaks very highly of Balck in his autobiography, Panzer Leader.) Balck was dismissed as C-in-C of Army Group G because of a Himmler intrigue in mid-December 1944, and Guderian managed to obtain another command for Balck—6th Army on the Eastern Front. Although we have no details, the issue of Mellenthin must have arisen when the two old comrades met in December 1944. In any case, Guderian was not yet ready to restore Mellenthin to the General Staff, but gave him command of a regiment in the 9th Panzer Division instead. He reported to Headquarters, Army Group B on the Western Front on December 28 and took command of his regiment the next day. He found that it only had about 400 men left.
Mellenthin led his new command in the Battle of Houffalize and in the final stages of the Battle of the Bulge, during which he beat off several American attacks. His unit formed the rear guard of the 5th Panzer Army, and Mellenthin’s experiences in Russia proved invaluable, as he knew much more about retreating through ice and snow than did his opponents. By the end of the battle, Mellenthin was out of Guderian’s ‘‘dog house.’’ Meanwhile, General of Panzer Troops Baron Hasso von Manteuffel, the commander of the 5th Panzer Army, was transferred to the Eastern Front. He was replaced by Colonel General Joseph Harpe. Mellenthin was picked to be Harpe’s chief of staff. He took over on March 5.
Mellenthin’s account of the last days of the war is thin, in large part because he did not care to remember that bitter episode of his life. Army Group B (composed of the 5th Panzer and 15th Armies) was surrounded in the Ruhr Pocket on April 1. Resistance collapsed relatively quickly. On April 15, Field Marshal Walter Model ordered the army group to break into small bands and to try to escape to the east. He discharged older and younger men from the service on April 17 and ordered everyone to cease fighting, in effect dissolving the army group. He committed suicide the next day.
F. W. von Mellenthin was not yet ready to go into the POW camps. With a handful of other officers, he broke out of the pocket and headed east, traveling by night and hiding by day. It was too late, however. Hitler committed suicide on April 30, and Mellenthin was captured by American soldiers at Hoexter Wesel on May 3.
Mellenthin spent the next two and a half years as a prisoner of war. When he was released, his estates in the East and all of his wealth were gone. He spent the next three years as a homeless refugee in West Germany, which was now a land of little or no opportunity. In 1950, he emigrated to South Africa, where prospects were better. He at least had family there, as his wife’s grandfather had moved there in 1868. In his late 40s—an age in which most people start thinking about retirement—F. W. von Mellenthin started over in the business world. Three years later, with little aviation experience or background, he started his own airline, Trek Air, which later became Luxavia. He managed to capture a sizable portion of Lufthansa’s market, so much so that Lufthansa hired him as its regional director. Trek Air, meanwhile, became very profitable. He later commented that success in the airline business—indeed any business—was ‘‘really only a matter of good staff work and selecting the right people.’’ Using his General Staff principles and his talent for picking the right person for the right job, Mellenthin retired a rich man.
The short ex-general with the pale blue eyes continued to work almost until his death. He rode his horses two hours every day and spent eight hours a day at his desk as an unpaid consultant to various charities. He also consulted for NATO and the U.S. Army, spoke to various Western war colleges, and maintained contact with his extended family. Once a year he flew to West Germany and attended a dinner with his old regiment, the 7th Cavalry. (These reunions were held in Wiesbaden, West Germany, because Breslau had been taken over by Poland and renamed Wroclaw.) Finally, he went the way of all mortals and died at Johannesburg, South Africa, on June 28, 1997, at the age of 92.
Source :
"Rommel's Desert Commanders; The Men Who Served the Desert Fox, North Africa, 1941-1942" by Samuel W. Mitcham
Gregg Tolbert photo collection
