Even Hitler’s military right hand, the loyal and devoted Jodl, was now made to feel the full impact of his wrath. On 5 September List had asked for Jodl to be been sent to Army Group A headquarters at Stalino, north of the Sea of Azov, to discuss the further deployment of the 39th Mountain Corps.230 The visit took place two days later. From Hitler’s point of view, the purpose was to urge List to accelerate the advance on the largely stalled Caucasus front. Hitler’s patience at the lack of progress had been extremely thin for some time. But far from bringing back positive news, Jodl returned that evening with a devastating account of conditions. It was no longer possible to force the Soviets back over the mountain passes. The most that could be achieved, with greater mobility and maximum concentration of forces, was a last attempt to reach Grozny and the Caspian Sea. Hitler grew more angry with every sentence. He lashed out at the ‘lack of initiative’ of the army leadership; and now for the first time attacked Jodl, the messenger bearing bad news.231 It was the worst crisis in relations between Hitler and his military leaders since the previous August.232 Hitler was in a towering rage. But Jodl stood his ground. It turned into a shouting-match.233 Jodl fully backed List’s assessment of the position. Hitler exploded. He accused Jodl of betraying his orders, being talked round by List, and taking sides with the Army Group. He had not sent him to the Caucasus, he said, to have him bring back doubts among the troops.234 Jodl retorted that List was faithfully adhering to the orders Hitler himself had given.235 Beside himself with rage, Hitler said his words were being twisted. Things would have to be different. He would have to ensure that he could not be deliberately misinterpreted in future.236 Like a prima donna in a pique, Hitler stormed out, refusing to shake hands (as he invariably had done at the end of their meetings) with Jodl and Keitel.237 Evidently depressed as well as angry, he said to his Wehrmacht adjutant Schmundt that night, ‘I’ll be glad when I can take off this detestable uniform and trample on it.’238 He saw no end to the war in Russia since none of the aims of summer 1942 had been realized. The anxiety about the forthcoming winter was dreadful, he said. ‘But on the other hand,’ noted Army Adjutant Engel, ‘he will retreat nowhere.’239
Hitler now shut himself up in his darkened hut during the days. He refused to appear for the communal meals. The military briefings, with as few present as possible, took place in a glacial atmosphere in his own hut, not in the headquarters of the Wehrmacht staff. And he refused to shake hands with anyone. Within forty-eight hours, a group of shorthand typists, practised stenographers from the Reichstag (where the need for active stenographers was by now hardly pressing), arrived at FHQ. Hitler had insisted upon a record of all military briefings being taken so that he could not again be misinterpreted.240
The day after the confrontation with Jodl, Hitler dismissed List. Demonstrating his distrust of his generals, he himself for the time being took over the command of Army Group A. He was now commander of the armed forces, of one branch of those armed forces, and of one group of that branch. At the same time, Keitel was deputed to tell Halder that he would soon be relieved of his post. Keitel himself and Jodl were also rumoured to be slated for dismissal.241 Jodl admitted privately that he had been at fault in trying to point out to a dictator where he had gone wrong. This, Jodl said, could only shake his self-confidence — the basis of his personality and actions. Jodl added that whoever his own replacement might be, he could not be more of a staunch National Socialist than he himself was.242
In the event, the worsening conditions at Stalingrad and in the Mediterranean prevented the intended replacement of Jodl by Paulus and Keitel by Kesselring.243 But there was no saving Halder. Hitler complained bitterly to Below that Halder had no comprehension of the difficulties at the front and was devoid of ideas for solutions. He coldly viewed the situation only from maps and had ‘completely wrong notions’ about the way things were going.244 Hitler pondered Schmundt’s advice to replace Halder by Major-General Kurt Zeitzler, a very different type of character — a small bald-headed, ambitious, dynamic forty-seven-year-old, firm believer in the Führer, who had been put in by Hitler in April to shake up the army in the west and, as Rundstedt’s chief of staff, to build up coastal defences.245 Göring, too, encouraged Hitler to get rid of Halder.246
