January-February - Air Defense Artillery

10
Halder
Polish armies in the Vistula bend, to the west of vVarsaw.
To accomplish this envelopment, a German pincers was
to close around the Poles, one arm being launched from
Pomerania in the north, the other from Silesia in the
south. Two, or perhaps even three months' fighting
I lalder thought, would be needed to bring about the defeat
of Poland.
vVhen Hitler saw this strategical plan of his General
Staff. he was furious, stormed at the generals. called them
prosaic numskulls who still understood war only in terms of
1918, and \\ ho did not understand the full potentialities of
the tank and the airplane. Hitler wanted a much more rapid
tempo. He insisted Poland could be crushed in a few
v.eeks, not months.
In successive conferences, Hitler sketched for his General
Staff his own plan of campaign. There should be two
double envelopments, one inside the other. The orthodox
envelopment west of \Varsaw, was to stand as it was. Hitler's
proposal was for a second em'elopment executed simultaneously.
The arms of these pincers would join far east of
vVarsaw. The northern arm of the pincers in Hitler's plan
was to drive out of East Prussia: the southern arm from the
THE COAST ARTILLER'l JOURNAL
Von Brauchicsch
The cool and calculating German generals, Von Br
itsch and Halder, were aghast at this Bight of imagin
They wanted something more conservative, some
involving no unnecessary risk. They protested and
promptly overruled. Hitler's own plan was to be carried
The result is historv. Hitler, the rank military dilet
who made war by intuition, who knew no mor~ about
than any average politician, had nevertheless made a
guess than his experienced generals at what the
weapons of warfare could accomplish.
The plan for Poland was a good Hitlerian guess; .might
have been better for Germany if Hitler had gu
wrong, on this his first opportunity to display "mil'
genius."
~ext came Norwav. This time the General Staff dec
the campaign wasn't' going to be prosaic. It would be
orthodox with a vengeance. A great double amphi
landing operation was planned against both sides of
fjord. 0Jothing like it had ever been tried in all Ge
historv. The navv, armv and air force were to act as a t
lust t~ be sure, howe\'~r, that Hitler would not call t
~umskulls again, the ~e.neral Sta~ added a f~w ~inor