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General William E. DePuy once referred to German "General der Panzertruppe" Hermann Balck as "perhaps the best division commander in the German Army."1 Oddly, although Balck commanded Army Group G opposite US Army General George S. Patton Jr. during the Lorraine Campaign, he was not mentioned in the 1989 book Hitler's Generals.' Still, Balck was one of only 27 German soldiers to earn the prestigious Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, with Swords, Oakleaves and Diamonds. DePuy's remark was specifically about Balck's December 1942 series of battles on the Chir River-masterpieces of tactical agility, mobile counterattack and Auftragstaktik.
Balck was born in DanzigLangfuhr, Prussia, in 1893-long after his Finnish ancestors had migrated to Germany in 1120. Balck's father, Generalleutnant William Balck, received the Pourle Meritethe "Blue Max"--while a division commander during World War 1.1 The older Balck was also a member of the Prussian Imperial General Staff and one of Germany's most prominent writers on tactics before and immediately after World War 1. Several of his works were translated into English and used in US Army service schools.
In 1913, Hermann Balck joined the Goslar Rifles as an officer candidate. A year later, he was posted briefly to the Hanovarian Military College. He then entered combat with his regiment. During the war, Balck was a mountain infantry officer on the Western, Eastern, Italian and Balkan fronts, serving almost three years as a company commander. During one period he led an extended patrol that operated independently behind Russian lines for several weeks. Over the course of the war, Balck was wounded seven times and awarded the Iron Cross First Class. In October 1918 he was recommended for the Pour le Merite, but he never received the award.4
Retained in the small postwar Reichswehr, Balck transferred to the I 8th Cavalry Regiment in 1922 and stayed with that unit for 12 years. He twice refused opportunities to join the General Staff, preferring to remain a line officer. In 1935, as a lieutenant colonel, Balck commanded the first bicycle battalion in the German army. In 1938, he transferred to Colonel Heinz Guderian's Inspectorate of Mobile Troops within the High Command in Berlin. During the Polish Campaign, Balck was responsible for managing the reorganization and refitting of the Panzer...