General of Panzer Troops Georg Stumme

General of Panzer Troops Georg Stumme, born in 1886, commanded the 2nd Light Division at Gera as Lieutenant-General in 1939. In Russia in 1941 he commanded XL Panzer Corps in the assault on Moscow, in which his tanks were halted more by the mud than by the enemy. He got to within fifty miles of Moscow on the highway, but was continually counter-attacked by T.34s which could manoeuvre in the mud. It was during this advance that Stumme made the memorable remark to Major-General Fischer, G.O.C. 10th Panzer Division, 'Good, God, this is no more than a reinforced reconnaissance patrol!'

Stumme was short, very energetic, always wore an eyeglass, and suffered from high blood pressure which gave him a permanent flush. He was nicknamed 'Fireball' by his troops. In the Velikije Luki battk of 1941 his Corps took 30,000 prisoners.

Carell has described Stumme thus: 'Stumme was no scholarly General Staff officer, but a practical man with a genuine flair for spotting and grasping tactical opportunities. He was one of the best German tank commanders, clever in planning operations and resolute in executing them. He was a front-line officer, idolized by his soldiers, whose welfare was his constant concern. But he was also respected by his officers, who admired his energy and operational instinct....'

Stumme lost his command in the same way General Felmy lost his—the chief of operations of 23rd Panzer Division, carrying plans for an impending attack, had been shot down in an aircraft by the Russians, into whose hands the plans fell. Stumme was held responsible, and given five years' fortress detention by the Reich Military Court. Because of his excellent record the sentence was remitted, and instead Stumme was sent to Africa.

He arrived at Rommel's headquarters on 19 September 1942 and on 22 September took over command of the Afrika Army. Kesselring wrote, 'Being a man of a more even and genial temperament than Rommel, he did much to relax the tension among officers and men, besides managing to create tolerable relations with the Italian Command.' But he was not quite physically fit. Rommel doubted whether a man with his blood pressure should ever have been sent to the desert. In the event, Stumme inherited Rommel's plan for the defence at El Alamein, and spared no effort to improve the defences despite (in Rommel's words) 'the full extent of the supply deficiencies, on which the whole Africa problem turned'. On 24 October, while driving at the front, Stumme's car was fired on by British troops and one of his N.C.Os was killed. The car turned round and drove off at high speed, with Stumme clinging to the side of it, but he dropped off and was later found to be dead, presumably from a heart attack. As Rommel wrote of Stumme, 'He had spared no pains to command the Army well and had been day and night at the front'.