A FLAWED GENIUS

A critical biography of Field-Marshal Walter Model, one of the foremost German commanders of the Second World War and one of the most complex of Hitler's generals. Walter Model ranks among the foremost commanders of the German Wehrmacht during the Second World War. This is recognised by both German and foreign military historians. But Model was also one of the most brutal German Generals. Whenever he assumed a new command, he showered his staff officers with insults which hurt their dignity and led many of them to request their transfer. The higher Model rose in rank, the more offensive his behaviour became. This book tells the story of Walter Model's career, beginning with his youth and ending with his suicide on 21st April 1945, when he finally woke up to his errors, dissolved his Army Group in the Ruhr Pocket and told his soldiers that they were free to go home. Walter Model had served with distinction as a junior officer during the First World War. In the Reichswehr and after 1935 in the Wehrmacht, his service altered between troop commands and increasingly important duties in the Generalstab. In March 1938, he reached General's rank with his promotion to Generalmajor. During World War Two, Walter Model rose to the highest ranks. In the campaigns in Poland and France he was Chief of Staff of a Corps and later of an Army. His first troop command was a Panzer division during the initial phase of the war against Russia. In the winter of 1941 he rose to corps command, a few weeks later he became commander in chief of Ninth Army. As of 1944 he assumed command of Army Groups. In the East, he commanded two of the three Army Groups simultaneously and was also responsible for coordination with the third Army Group, making him, in practice, Supreme Commander East. He was then named Supreme Commander West and commanded Army Group B until the end. The latter part of the book gives a detailed account of Model's active involvement in the worst war crimes and deals with Model's increasingly absurd orders of the day, some of which can cast doubt on his sanity. It also analyses courts martial convened by him and shows how he was part of the increasing perversion of military justice. Researched from a huge array of primary and secondary sources, "A Flawed Genius" is destined to become the primary biography about Model, a most controversial and complex German military figure.