Sickle cut plan

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Sickle cut plan is the term coined by Winston Churchill for the attack plan of the German Wehrmacht in the French campaign in the spring of 1940. The plan was largely drafted by General Erich von Manstein and led to the encirclement of the Allied troops in Flanders, the unexpectedly rapid defeat of France and the emergence of the Blitzkrieg legend .

Creation of the plan

Original planning for the French campaign

The development of the sickle cut

Originally, the Army High Command planned an operation similar to the Schlieffen Plan of the First World War . The plan pursued the goal of the Allies means of a fast attack by Belgium in the cross to fall. The opposing armies should be separated and driven back, but not completely destroyed.

Lieutenant General Erich von Manstein , at that time Chief of Staff of Army Group A , described the plan of operations proposed by the Army High Command, namely to attack Army Group B in the north , as unsuitable for forcing the final decision on the mainland. It is merely a new edition of the Schlieffen Plan, which had already failed in World War I, i.e. exactly what the French should expect. However, due to its scarcity of resources, the German Reich was dependent on a quick strategic decision. Therefore the retreating enemy had to be cut off before reaching the Somme .

Manstein's alternative proposal

Von Manstein drafted the "New Plan", with the full support of the Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Gerd von Rundstedt . He called for the focus to be shifted from Army Group B in the north to Army Group A in the south and to advance with strong armored forces through the impassable terrain of the Ardennes , which is also limited to a few roads, to the lower reaches of the Somme. If the surprise attack succeeded in crossing the Meuse at Sedan , the German tank divisions could advance through the French hinterland to the Channel coast . All of the Allied troops in northern France and Belgium would be enclosed in a cauldron. The simultaneous attack of the 16th Army in the south-west was intended to cover the flank of the advancing troops to the canal and to destroy the formation of a new, closed front of the Allies. Such a defensive barrier would have been difficult to break in the second phase of the campaign and with great losses.

Von Manstein's plan, however, carried considerable risk. Everything depended on the enemy actually marching into the Belgian trap. The Allies expected that the Germans would attack according to the scheme of the Schlieffen Plan, as they did in 1914. Therefore they expected the enemy center of gravity in Flanders . In the southern section of the front, France was protected by the Maginot Line . In the middle, the wooded hill country of the Ardennes and the Meuse formed a supposed double natural locking bar. But it was precisely through this area that the main force of German tanks was to break through. This startling plan was initially not heard by the Army High Command (OKH). The chief of staff, Franz Halder , considered it impracticable because of the Ardennes, which was unfavorable for tanks, and transferred the uncomfortable Manstein to Schwerin as the commanding general of XXXVIII. Corps. The attack date for the conventional attack according to the Schlieffen Plan was set for January 17th. The German commanders in chief made their preparations, although they knew that the Wehrmacht was only partially ready to attack.

Mechelen incident

On January 10, 1940, however, the entire (conventional) plan became obsolete due to the Mechelen incident : Air Force officer Major Helmut Reinberger was stopped in Münster on his trip to a staff meeting scheduled in Cologne . He accepted the offer to fly in a Luftwaffe courier in order to save himself the trip on the night express train, although he was in breach of a clear order by Hermann Göring not to deliver secret information by air. Reinberger's briefcase contained the top secret plan for an important part of the German incursion into France and the Netherlands.

After taking off from Münster-Loddenheide airfield , the Messerschmitt Bf 108 aircraft came off course in thick fog due to a wind displacement and the pilot flew over the Rhine without noticing it, an important orientation line. The pilot, Major Erich Hönmanns , finally sighted a river, but realized that it couldn't be the Rhine. In the humid, freezing air, the aircraft's wings and carburetors froze until the engine finally failed. Hönmanns found a small field just in time to make an emergency landing. Unharmed, the two officers had to realize that they had flown over the Meuse and landed in Belgium near Vucht an der Maas (now Maasmechelen), 80 kilometers west of Cologne .

Reinberger wanted to burn the plans, but was surprised by Belgian gendarmes who were able to save the papers and forward them to the Belgian military. The same evening the legible documents were available to the Belgian General Staff, which immediately ordered the mobilization of the Belgian armed forces . The Belgians also sent the French and British armies in northern France a summary of the contents of the documents found at Reinberger.

Elaboration of the modified plan

Nevertheless, the OKH essentially stuck to its planning. About major i. G. von Tresckow and his friend Lieutenant Colonel Schmundt , Hitler's chief adjutant, eventually got Hitler himself aware of Manstein's plan and found it so convincing that Halder was now given the task of developing it further. According to this, the German attack focus should now actually be in the Ardennes, an impenetrable forested mountainous area in the border area between Belgium, France and Luxembourg. With an attack there, the Germans would not only have the element of surprise on their side, this was also the weakest defended section of the French border. The German tanks would be able to overcome the enemy positions relatively easily, advance through the hinterland at a rapid pace to the Channel coast and thus seal off the British-French main forces located to the north from France. The air force should fight enemy resistance with targeted attacks of its own and use airborne troops to conquer and secure bridges over the numerous rivers in order to ensure a rapid advance. In addition, according to the old plan, the attack on northern Belgium and the Netherlands should also be carried out in order to lure the Allies into Belgium first and then to seal them off all the more easily in the course of the new main attack south. The overall plan now practically consisted of two locally quite different and somewhat staggered large-scale attacks, including the reaction of the enemy, who was supposed to run forward into the trap and be trapped backwards.

Manstein's proposal was officially accepted on February 24, 1940 as the basis for German attack planning. Winston Churchill later called this plan "sickle cut". The plan envisaged attacking the Netherlands , Belgium and Luxembourg with Army Group B without declaring war of their own (including 3 tank divisions, 2 1/3 motorized Inf.-Div., 1 Cav.-Div.); France and Great Britain had already declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939. The main weight of the offensive lay in the Ardennes with Army Group A with a thrust towards Sedan (including 7 tank divisions, 3¼ motorized Inf.-Div. + 1½ reserve). The Wehrmacht's balance of power was not one to seven (left flank to right flank), as was the case with the Schlieffen Plan, but rather the other way round (three Army Groups B to five HGr A + reserves of all division types, two HGr C = stronger center). Army Group C was on the defensive on the Siegfried Line and the Rhine in the first phase of the campaign. After the advance, the associations should move slightly north towards Amiens in order to initiate the sickle cut. The success of this operation was decisive for the further course of the war. The Allies had not thought it possible to lead tank formations through the rough terrain of the Ardennes.

With the quick successes in the attack on Poland and right at the beginning of the western campaign - with the sickle cut - the nimbus of the term " Blitzkrieg " began. The operational breakthrough at Sedan was crucial to defeating France. The fact that it was won in the same place as the victory at Sedan in 1870 also contributed to the formation of the Blitzkrieg legend.

literature

  • Shelford Bidwell et al. a .: Land war in the 20th century: history, technology, strategy . Edited by: Ray Bonds, Gondrom Verlag, Bayreuth 1978, ISBN 3-8112-0148-4 . (German translation; English original title: The encyclopedia of land warfare in the 20th century )
  • Karl-Heinz Frieser: Blitzkrieg legend. The western campaign in 1940 , Munich 1995. (= Operations of the Second World War, 2)

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ In 2006 a memorial was erected on the site
  2. ↑ s. Winston S. Churchill , The Second World War II , p. 74.
  3. ↑ Karl-Heinz Frieser Blitzkrieg legend p. 71.
  4. ↑ 1977, ISBN 9780600331452 .