Who were Germany’s Communist Generals who turned on Hitler and decided to join the Red Side?
How did they become influential in the formation of the East German Army? And what was Hitler’s
role in an army that was created after his death? Welcome back to Nutty History. Today,
we’ll be going back to East Germany in the wake of the Second World War, and looking at Hitler’s Red
Generals. In 1942, the German army was fighting for control of Stalingrad in Southern Russia.
The five month-long battle of Stalingrad was the bloodiest battle of World War 2, incurring roughly
2 million casualties. On November 19, 1942, the Germans found themselves cut off and surrounded
by Soviet forces. On February 2, 1943, they became the first of Hitler’s armies to surrender.
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The reason behind the surrender was Hitler forbidding the army from trying to fight back
and break out. His only priority was keeping a hold of the city. The trapped German forces found
themselves exhausted, running out of both food and ammunition. The Soviets took 91,000 prisoners,
including 22 Generals. Only six thousand of those prisoners survived the gulags.
Now understandably, many of these Generals blamed Hitler for the horrors they’d endured. How could
he do this to them? Why hadn’t he let them fight their way out? Didn’t he care at all? Did those
friendship bracelets mean nothing? So, naturally, many of them decided to stick it to Hitler by
collaborating with the Soviets. Among the first of these was Walther Von Seydlitz-Kurzbach.
Seydlitz-Kurzbach fought in World War 1, and its disappointing sequel- World War 2:
the Hitlering. Earlier in the war, he commanded a division that was trapped on
the eastern front - surrounded by Russian forces. He helped his men escape and was promoted for it,
so he got the foolish idea that his job was to help his soldiers. Big mistake.
When he fought at Stalingrad, he and his men were similarly surrounded.
He thought they should either surrender or fight their way out, but Hitler somehow wanted neither.
No fight. Only win. But Seydlitz-Kurzbach told his officers to choose for themselves whether or not
they wanted to surrender, so he was immediately relieved of his post. He fled to the Soviets,
while being shot at from his own side. The Soviets captured him and saw his potential as a possible
influencer, in a time before influencers were all about skin care and bikinis. They sent him
to a political reeducation center, where he was further indoctrinated with the radical belief
that maybe Hitler wasn’t “The Best”, and then placed him in prisoner of war camps, where he
enticed other soldiers to abandon Naziism and join the red team. Within these camps, an organization
called the National Kommittee for Free Germany was formed by several German prisoners of war
and exiled communists. This anti-Nazi organization sought to open negotiations for peace and punish
Nazi leaders. It wasn’t getting much traction, so Seydlitz-Kurzbach started the League of
German Officers, which was meant to be like the National Kommittee for Free Germany, but without
all the riffraff - it was an exclusive club for generals. Both the Soviets and the Germans used
him in their propaganda, and he was sentenced to death in-absentia by Hitler’s government.
The Soviets eventually lost their enthusiasm for him and charged him with war crimes.
After 5 years, he was released to Germany, where his death sentence was nullified. German veterans
hated him for his Soviet collaboration, so he didn’t receive any parades or pensions.
A co-founder of the League of German Officers was Dr. Otto Korfes. Korfes was the son of a pastor,
and studied philosophy. He joined the army in 1909. He fought in World War 1, where he was
promoted to the rank of Captain. He resigned from active service in 1920, but World War 2 had other
plans. Korfes was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel for the low low price of being in the German Army
during their famously unfun war. He fought near Stalingrad, and we know by now that it didn’t
go terribly well for the Nazis. Korfes was, like almost everyone, captured by the Soviets. He was
eventually released back to East Germany, where he joined the National Democratic Party of Germany,
and in 1952, he became Major General of the Barracked People’s Police.
His brother-in-law was a Hitler resister who was murdered by the Gestapo after being brutally
interrogated in prison, and found to be a key conspirator in the July Plot against Hitler.
Another General who was not too pleased with Hitler was Arno Von Lenski.
Von Lenski fought during World War 1 with the Imperial army, then as part of the Nazi Army,
where he rose to the rank of Lieutenant General during World War 2. He was captured at Stalingrad,
and joined Seydlitz-Kurzbach’s League of German Officers. In 1949 he was released to East Germany,
where he was formally acknowledged as a Victim of Fascism. Must’ve felt weird
pinning that thing on an ex Nazi. Von Lenski then joined the Barracked People’s Police,
which was succeeded by the National People’s Army, which was the army of East Germany.
Another Nazi turned red was Rudolph Bamler. Bamler was enlisted in the Prussian Army and fought in
World War 1. He became Head of Counter-espionage for Germany’s intelligence service,
and encouraged cooperation between the Gestapo and the SS. During the second World War,
he rose to the rank of Lieutenant General. He led battles on the Eastern Front, before surrendering
and defecting to the Soviet Union in 1944. He then returned to East Germany, where he
was a Major General in the Barracked People’s Police, and also had a career with the Stasi,
the highly repressive State police force. All in all, it’s an inspirational story of a
man leaving behind his violent old Nazi ways to try a totally different kind of state violence.
Let’s talk about Vincenz Muller, who was another of Hitler’s exes. Born in the Kingdom of Bavaria,
Muller fought in the first World War, where he was injured by a grenade, and contracted
typhus and malaria. He stayed with the German Armed Forces after the war, since he’d been
having such a great time of it so far. He did well there, eventually being promoted to Major General,
and contributing to Germany’s mobilization system. He also helped to plan Germany’s invasion of the
Soviet Union, opening up the Eastern Front to become the largest theatre of war in history,
proving disastrous for all sides. In other words, he helped to plan the worst thing that’s ever been
planned. Imagine putting that on your resume. Maybe under “special skills”. In 1944, Muller
was in charge of 100,000 troops, and surrounded by Soviet forces 100 kilometers behind enemy lines.
Muller was confident that a breakout might be possible, but when he attempted one,
he was caught by the Soviet army. He advised the remaining troops to surrender,
and the Soviets ear-marked Muller as someone who might be amenable to influence. Within days
of his arrival at a prisoner of war camp, Muller joined the National Committee for a Free Germany,
and seemed to be an enthusiastic anti-Nazi and Communist - maybe hoping to change the
conversation from “whose idea was a Soviet invasion in the first place?!” Soon after, Muller
was released from captivity, and got into politics as the chairman for the National Democratic Party
of Germany. He was also Vice President of the East German Parliament, known as the Volkskammer,
which, in hindsight, wasn’t the most PR friendly title. Muller then rejoined the military,
on account of being a glutton for punishment. He was appointed as Chief of Staff of the National
People’s Army, and also worked to establish the national police force. However - and maybe this
has something to do with him becoming an anti-Nazi Communist right after being caught in a war that
he helped construct - there were uncertainties about Muller’s political affiliations.
Muller supported a degree of separation between the National People’s Army and the Soviet army,
and was also courted by the west to switch sides. Perhaps the simplest way forward was
the one that Muller chose: retirement. In 1960 he was hospitalized for Schizophrenia,
just as allegations were surfacing that he’d ordered the decimation of Jewish
and Soviet prisoners of war during his time in the war. In 1961, right before a return to hospital,
Muller fell off his balcony to his death, in what was rumoured to be a suicide,
because who survives two world wars just to accidentally fall off a balcony?
These Red Generals leave a complicated legacy: they denounced Hitler, but only when it became
convenient, and only after serving him for years. They were instruments of police and
military forces that were violent and oppressive in their own right, though some of them tried
to mollify tensions between East and West. They established the National People’s Army, which was
respected internationally. Maybe the main lesson here is that no matter what your past, or what
war crimes or decimation you’ve helped to carry out, the stasi has a place for you! What surprised
you most about these Generals? Let us know in the comments below. We hope you enjoyed learning about
Hitler’s Red Generals and the East German Army, and we’ll see you next time for another Nutty
History video! And don’t forget to download Call of War and experience the intensity of strategy
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