Talk:Günther von Kluge

Comment
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERkludge.htm indicate Hans not Günther. 209.90.162.50 08:51, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Actually he was Hans Günther von Kluge. Mikkalai 05:57, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Place of Death
von Kluge committed suicide during an airplane flight from Metz, France to Berlin, Germany. Some sources list his place of death as Metz (the origination of the flight) and some as Berlin (the desitination of the flight). I'm not sure what to put in the infobox place of death. If someone knows of a standard, please advise. FinFangFoom 11:03, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Most sources say that he used the given name Hans. His nickname "Kluge Hans" (clever Hans) confirms this. This article ought to be moved to either Hans von Kluge or Hans Günther von Kluge. Adam 12:47, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Photo
The photo appears to have been sanitized to remove the standard uniform eagle & swastika. Sca 16:24, 11 September 2006 (UTC) --- In answer to that, it is possible, that this is a family photo. From 1945 until 1949 there was no German government, only a military occupation, the Allied Control Council. One of the orders was the 'de-nazification', all items that showed a swastika were outlawed. Thus family photos showing uniforms had to have the swastika scratched off or covered with ink etc. or be destroyed.


 * As far as this photo is concerned, the above is not the case: this more likely a pre-1934 photo; i.e., von Kluge is wearing a Reichswehr uniform. This can be deduced from the Kokarde in the upper middle of his hat; this was replaced by the eagle with a swastika in its talons (Hoheitsadler) around 1934 by order of Hitler. HTH, Jim_Lockhart 13:26, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Suicide or Murdered by Jürgen Stroop?
Kazimierz Moczarski was an officer in the Polish Home Army. After the war he was imprisoned and was held in the same cell as Jürgen Stroop. In his book, Rozmowy z katem (Conversations with an Executioner), Chapter 23 is entitled Stroop Liquidates the Field-Marshal. Here Moczarski gives Stroop's description of how Stroop, as HSSPF of Rhein-Westmark was detailed by Himmler to investigate Kluge's involvement with the July Conspiracy. Upon collecting and finding "damning evidence", Stroop presented Kluge with the choice of suicide or the People's Court. Kluge refused, and according to Stroop, "In the end he found himself on the floor, on the beautiful carpet, with a bullet in his head...".

Himmler then instructed Stroop over the phone to write up his report to contain the airport suicide story. kovesp 23:12, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

This is unique and odd source; Kluge was very loyal to Hitler and he refused to respond to the conspirators although he didn't report on them. Field Marshal Keitel in his memoirs (Diary) mention that "Field Marshal Von Kluge and Field marshal Rommel knew were aware of the plot” However the statement from Jürgen Stroop would be better to have backup source in that matter as I find it unique (odd)!before it is added to the Encyclopedia ! Anybody know backup source to that? --78.89.1.3 (talk) 14:22, 28 March 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.89.1.3 (talk) 14:07, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Invasion of Poland and France
Regarding the statement: "As commander of the Sixth Army Group, which became the German Fourth Army, Kluge led the Sixth into battle in Poland in 1939." - I can find no references to this elsewhere. Indeed, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4th_Army_(Germany), it states: "The 4th Army was activated on 1 December 1938 with General Günther von Kluge in command." with no mention of Sixth Army Group anywhere in the article. Does someone have references to prove that the Sixth Army Group became the German Fourth Army? Zargon2010 (talk) 09:45, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Army Group is a "group of Armies", several Armies. They have never been used in peace time.
Army Groups are the largest military units that has been used. For instance there were three German Army Groups that attacked France 10 May 1940, they were labeled as A, B and C. Each Army Group comprised several Armys, however the number of divisions is the most commonly used type of military units, when comparing forces during WW2. Before the war, no such formations as Army Groups existed. Boeing720 (talk) 00:05, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Recent edit
I undid the additions of Fellgiebel and Seemen, as superfluous. Please see Talk:Erich_von_Manstein, specifically this portion of the discussion: "Is there actually a dire need to have these citations in the article at all?". Please let me know if there are any concerns. K.e.coffman (talk) 17:35, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Not involved ?
It may be so (as he at the summer of 1944 was in France) wasn't fully aware of the details regarding von Stauffenbeg's assassination attempt on Hitler, but von Kluge was certainly deeply involved in the resistance to Hitler and Nazism. For instance Hans Hellmut Kirst lists him among the around 20 most significant persons in the resistance movement. "The 20th of July" is a novel, but only in the details. Kirst made a historical and very thorough research before writing that work, a work that is undisputed. He disapproved of the status that Joseph Goebbels had given Erwin Rommel during the war in northern Africa, and couldn't see Rommel as a leader of larger military units (Army Group size), which may have caused confusion. He (von Kluge) had a close relationship with Henning von Tresckow and even if committed to his country, not to Hitler. Further, he was not just aware of the plans to kill Hitler (like Erich von Manstein, who took the rather awkward position when asked if he wished to join the resistance, and replied "Prussian officers do not rebel" - but still didn't reveal the resistance either), von Kluge was an active part of it, but couldn't participate due to circumstances. Injured in a traffic accident (!) in Russia, hospitalised and then moved to commander in the West (France). von Stauffenberg was undoubtedly a brave man, but the reason for his great name in history was the opportunity. The "access" to Hitler. We can't know weather von Kluge had been equally daring in von Stauffenberg's position on 20.July 1944, but we can't know the opposite either. Propose "was a part of the resistance" Boeing720 (talk) 10:05, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

20 July plot; manner of death
Compied from my Talk page. K.e.coffman (talk) 05:23, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

From what I have researched, Kluge had conferences with conspirators of the 20 July plot, and he agreed to cooperate but only if Hitler was dead. When it was discovered that he survived, Kluge backed out. On 17 August 1944, he was dismissed because he refused to order a counter-attack, and Hitler was convinced he was negotiating with the Allies. Does that align with what you have read? Also, how much weight should be given to Stroop’s claim of killing Kluge?TheGracefulSlick (talk) 02:48, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
 * On the 20 July plot, this aligns with the source that I have, Rommel: The End of a Legend, by Ralf Georg Reuth.
 * P. 182: Until late in the eve of 20 July the conspirators in Paris had more than 1,200 SS / SD men under arrest. Stulpnagel and Hofacker met with Kluge and tried to convince him to allow for this to continue but Kluge rescinded the arrest warrants.
 * Then about Kaltenbrunner's investigation into the plot, p. 183: Goebbels wrote in his diary on 2 August: "I am being given documents regarding the West conspiracy for 20 July. From these it can be seen that Stupnagel was totally involved in this betrayal and that he also tried to pull Kluge and Rommel over to his side. [None] put up the necessary resistance to his insinuations".
 * Not sure about not ordering the counter-attack as the source is about Rommel, not Kluge. But Reuth does discuss that Kluge shared Rommel's misgivings. P. 74: Shortly before the coup attempt, Rommel wrote a report urging Hitler to seek peace in the West. Kluge forwarded Rommel's report to the OKW (as Rommel's superior), adding a 21 July cover note that he agreed with Rommel's assessment. The report reached Hitler on July 23.


 * On Stroop, I think that this is a fringe theory via a second-hand source, originating from Stroop himself. It may be best to ignore it unless better sources exist. K.e.coffman (talk) 05:42, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
 * the source I am primarily using is Max Hastings’ Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy. To clarify, the order Kluge refused came on the same day he issued a full-scale retreat—16 August. However, Hastings did not write about Kluge rescinding the arrest warrants so I will use the source you provided for that detail. On Stroop, none of the historians I read thus far—Hastings, Correlli Barnett, and Carlo D'Este—even mention this theory; they all are in agreement that Kluge committed suicide because he feared he was implicated in the plot. I am in agreement that it is best to ignore it for now.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 06:37, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Cool. I added Reuth to the bibliography, so you can just add sfn cites. K.e.coffman (talk) 06:41, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I've read Moczarski's book. And given what we know of Stroop's personality and "working methods" (from his report on liquidating the Warsaw ghetto, etc.), I'm convinced that Stroop's own shadow-of-the-gallows account has the ring of truth to it.  It is specific, detailed, and plausible.  It matches the general M.O. and spirit of the time, people, and place too, going by my impressions from Manfred Rommel's concluding chapter in Erwin Rommel, The Rommel Papers 495-506 (B.H. Liddell-Hart, ed., 1982) (though on its face it supports the suicide-by-poison story, at p. 499, it relates it only as second-degree hearsay from the elder Rommel; but the younger Rommel directly relates the fog-shroudedness of available information).  Read between the lines of Günther Blumentritt's statement to CPT Liddell-Hart in The German Generals Talk 251 (1948):
 * Field-Marshal von Kluge left for home the next day. On the evening of the day after his departure I had a telephone call from Metz to say that he had had a heart attack, and died. Two days later came a medical report stating that his death was due to cerebral haemorrhage.  Then came word that he was to have a State Funeral * * *. The came a sudden order that there was to be no State Funeral. I then heard [he] had taken poison[. And hereafter follows the same story Manfred Rommel, in The Rommel Papers, says he heard from his dad "one day" in August, "after a courier officer who had brought news from France" "dr[o]ve off."]
 * Compare Stroop's account in Moczarski, p. 234, after relating how he'd killed Kluge in anger and then asked his boss for further instructions on how to solve the awkward situation presented by the fresh field-marshal corpse: "Heinrich Himmler told me by telephone to alert General Headquarters that Kluge had boarded a plane in France, wishing to join his Führer, but that immediately preceding the takeoff he'd committed suicide."
 * It sounds like there was an even greater than usual amount of story-straightening going on in the moment. So -- using, as a last resort, slightly repurposed versions of the "statement of a party opponent" and "statement against interest" hearsay-exception rules from good ol' evidence law, the possibility of murder by Stroop should probably be added to the lede, with citation to Stroop's statements related through Moczarski's book. Given that this is a biographical article (albeit obviously not of a living person), and that there is a significant difference in moral weight between having killed oneself in deference to the Nazis and having been straight-up murdered by them, perhaps the now-discarded change I made to the lede a year ago should be reconsidered and restored.   --Dynaflow   babble  18:22, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Other sources seem to give the Stroop-murder admission some credence. See, e.g., the entry on Stroop in Bartrop and Dickerman's The Holocaust: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection vol. 2, p. 620 (2017), the way Jonathan Trigg dealt with the issue in his D-Day Through German Eyes: How the Wehrmacht Lost France (2019), and Winston Groom's footnote on p. 365 of his The Generals: Patton, MacArthur, Marshall, and the Winning of World War II (2015).   --Dynaflow   babble  19:53, 15 October 2019 (UTC)


 * The first source provides one para in an entry about Stroop and attributes it as Stroop's claim. The second source, by Jonathan Trigg, appears to be part of what can be best described as "Militaria literature", i.e. not an RS for this matter. The third is a footnote. I don't think this is sufficient for the inclusion of Stroop's narrative.
 * I've not come across this theory on the writings about Kluge and / or about the plot. It could mean that historians do not consider Stroop's to be a credible account. --K.e.coffman (talk) 00:25, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Let's talk about who we're talking about when we ask for a "reliable source" here. Do we mean Moczarski, or do we mean Stroop?  If the issue is with Moczarski as the source of Stroop's statement, he's fairly well respected as being factually reliable in spite of his use of literary devices (see p. 8) to piece together nearly a year's worth of fragmented Stroop-versations with his cellmate into a coherent narrative.  So it's much more likely than not that if Moczarski says Stroop said a thing (particularly something so memorably shocking and -- really -- simultaneously hard and idiotic to make up), it's likely that that's what Stroop said.
 * If we're talking about the reliability of Stroop himself as a source, let's remember that he was the guy who was supposed to get Kluge to the airplane, and he is the only specifically-identifiable person (i.e., not potentially a generic stand-in straw man) I've encountered in the whole literature who actually claims to have seen Kluge die (or dead, for that matter). That makes him not just a WP:PRIMARY source for the event, but the only primary source for how von Kluge actually died.  And Moczarski's secondary-level report and evaluation of Stroop's statements thus is not "fringe," but merely (and necessarily) unique -- and out of print.
 * Do you have access to the book in translation through interlibrary loan or something? I know it's a hard book to get hold of, because Prentice-Hall never put the thing into paperback.  But I think it would be helpful to this discussion if you also looked at this source directly in dead-tree format.   --Dynaflow   babble  04:53, 16 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Stroop is an unreliable source, related via a second-hand account. It does not appear that the theory has achieved credence with historians in re: Kluge's death, and I believe that its such inclusion would be undue in this article. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:33, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Payment
I do not quite understand the sentence: "Kluge initially accepted the money, but after severe criticism from his Chief of Staff, Henning von Tresckow, who upbraided him for corruption, he agreed to meet Carl Friedrich Goerdeler in November 1942." I assume that he accepted the money, right? If this is the case, it reads odd, as "He initially ..., but ..." would imply that he eventually refused, not had a meeting with the conspirators. What does the source say about this?--K.e.coffman (talk) 03:14, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
 * do you happen to have sources that may clarify this? --K.e.coffman (talk) 02:50, 13 January 2019 (UTC)
 * unfortunately must of my sources are about his time on the Western Front. However, Hitler’s Generals by Correlli Barnett does say something about Hitler giving Kluge money:
 * Page 404: “Whether Hitler suspected Kluge’s disloyalty at this stage is unknown, but in October 1942 the Fuhrer surprisingly sent Kluge a cheque for a quarter of a million marks for the benefit of his country estate as a tax-free testimonial for his conduct of the war. Kluge, after considerable doubts, accepted. To have refused would have betrayed his disloyalty to the Fuhrer. Tresckow told Kluge that posterity would only understand his acceptance of the gift if Kluge made it appear he accepted it to avoid dismissal so that he could preserve a position from which he might overthrow Hitler”.
 * Let me know if this helped clarify things.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 03:37, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Mitcham
Ed is requesting that I mention Wolfgang Von Kluge’s rank. A book by Samuel W. Mitcham has it and describes his dishonorable discharge a month after his brother committed suicide. However, I recall a talk page discussion I cannot find at the moment that contests his reliability. What is your opinion—would it be alright to cite Mitcham for this?TheGracefulSlick (talk) 17:42, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, Mitcham is generally okay for information that can be backed up by archival data: dates of promotion; commands; discharge; etc. --K.e.coffman (talk) 23:55, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks . I will probably be gone for good soon but I tried to address everything on my end before then. My source did not have an estimate of the forces under Kluge’s command in Poland, but I doubt that will be a deal-breaker. Thank you for finishing this with me and I apologize for total stupidity as of late—it really cost me.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 00:33, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Lead photo
I restored the image to the infobox ; my rationale was: "Later career photo is a better fit for the infobox". This photo also makes Kluge look like a real person, rather than a propaganda icon. --K.e.coffman (talk) 15:55, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Well I think that the portrait taken in 1939 is a pretty neutral studio portrait of him in uniform and it's much higher quality than the later career photo. I don't think he received any physical trauma that grossly disfigured him between 1939-1944, is a later career photo necessary? Studio portraits all flatter the subject, I don't see how it depicts him as a "propaganda icon". If its the Knight's Cross you're worried about, it's pretty prominent in almost every other portrait of German officers in that era. Meeepmep (talk) 18:55, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The 1944 photo makes Kluge look more like a real, thinking person. It adds character to the article. In any case, the change was reverted, and I do not find the arguments for the 1939 photo to be compelling. I would recommend an RfC to resolve this dispute. --K.e.coffman (talk) 17:57, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I've noticed that you changed the lead image in Guderian's article with the rationale "photo w/o headgear". I agree with this change and I think this rationale also applies to this article, on top of the fact that the original lead image is much better quality. Meeepmep (talk) 13:44, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Section 2.3.1 battle of Moscow
Felimy419 (talk) 23:20, 7 June 2021 (UTC) Obviously this is also a subsection of the (linked) main article Battle of Moscow, so perhaps inevitably there is some repetition. But its not clear why so much detail has to be repeated. The main point in this article is not the sequence of events in the battle, but Kluges role in them. Would it not be better to say straight out that there was and is controversy surrounding the relationship between Kluge and his Panzer commanders and then leave the details to the main Battle of Moscow article ? A more specific criticism I have is the referencing of secondary sources. The statement "Moscow was a fortified position which the Wehrmacht lacked the strength to take in a frontal assault" is correctly cited as coming from Stahel. In the previous sentence the statement: "German forces lacked the numbers to encircle it" is an unsubstantiated speculation, and is obviously also from Stahel, but is not referenced as such but presented as a fact. At a minimum, reference Stahel but preferably cite his name (which is correctly done in the previous sentence) because the reference is not to a fact the historian discovered but to his opinion. In this vein it would be an improvement also to cite a countervailing opinion (eg Forczyk) who agrees with Guderian in blaming Kluge.