The Only German Field Marshal Who Died in a Soviet Prison.

Ewald von Kleist commanded the largest concentration of armor Germany had ever assembled, cracked the French front at Sedan, closed the greatest encirclement in the history of warfare at Kiev, and drove German soldiers further south than they would ever stand again. He died on a cot in a Soviet cell at Vladimir, the only German field marshal ever to do so. This episode keeps both ledgers open at once. The operational skill was real, and I don't pretend otherwise. So is the rest of it: encirclements that fed hundreds of thousands of prisoners into a system that killed more than half of them, a Commissar Order that almost no unit refused, and a command zone that included Babi Yar. The centerpiece is the humane Caucasus legend, the claim that Kleist governed decently and even shielded Jews. Nalchik answers it. So, strangely, does the Soviet indictment, which prosecuted his conciliation policy as a crime in itself. He left no memoir to argue with, which is why the myth-makers had him to themselves for so long. SOURCES Primary documents: Einsatzgruppen Operational Situation Reports, war diaries of First Panzer Army and Army Group A, Nuremberg records, the Yugoslav and Soviet trial proceedings. Scholarship: Christian Streit, Keine Kameraden. Felix Römer, Der Kommissarbefehl. Johannes Hürter, Hitlers Heerführer. Geoffrey Megargee, War of Annihilation. Kiril Feferman, The Holocaust in the Crimea and the North Caucasus. Dieter Pohl on the Caucasus occupation. David Stahel, Kiev 1941. Robert Citino, Death of the Wehrmacht. Interested-party accounts, evidence of what was claimed rather than what happened: Liddell Hart, The German Generals Talk. Manstein, Lost Victories. Guderian, Panzer Leader. Halder's US Army Historical Division manuscripts. Carell and Mitcham, cited only as the origin of the humane-commander legend.