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Falkenhorst means "falcon's eyrie," and it was his use of winged killers that swept Germany's new hero to his fame. Blond, blue-eyed, smallish Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, 55, had proved himself a pitiless war lord. His soldierly qualities came to him from a line of professional fighters and from the same military academies—at Wahlstatt and Lichterfelde (oldtime Prussian West Point)—that turned out Germany's Hindenburg and Ludendorff. From the age of twelve, in school and at home in Breslau, he was shaped strictly for membership in his father's regiment, the crack Seventh Grenadiers of Liegnitz, Silesia, whose honorary chiefs were the Kaiser and the Tsar. Schoolmates recall him as a witty wisecracker, gay, with a talent for dramatics. But he stuck to soldiering faithfully, gained his lieutenancy in time for World War I. By bravery at Longwy and the Meuse, by luck at Verdun, he rose and survived to become a staff officer under Count Rüdiger von der Goltz, who in 1918 was sent to help Baron Mannerheim win Finland's independence.
That Falkenhorst did not brilliantly distinguish himself then is suggested by the fact that he came out of his first war only a captain. In planning the Finland expedition, as General von der Goltz's operations officer, he learned about embarking troops, transporting them overseas, disembarking them for action in rough, cold country, effecting naval cooperation to feed and supply them.
He free-lanced against the Poles in 1919-20 under General Höfer, then rejoined Germany's post-Versailles army of 100,000. In 1922 he was called to the Reichswehr Ministry in Berlin, got his majority in 1925, his first regimental command in 1928. Three years later he was Chief of Staff of the First Division, in 1932, a full colonel. Then he went to Prague for three years as military attache for Hungary, Czecho-Slovakia, Rumania. Germany did not have left many competent officers of his generation and he was soon commissioned a major general, Chief of Staff of the Third Army Corps.
By 1936, Adolf Hitler's blueprints for the Polish push were complete and Falkenhorst was given the job of raising and organizing, from scratch, an entire new division (32nd Infantry) with headquarters in the hick town of Köslin on the Pomeranian plain. Cheerfully he moved his wife and two daughters to their first real home after years of nomadic army life: an old castle just off the Köslin market place. He added municipal cares to his army work, became a military potentate. As sleepy Köslin came to life with martial activity, recruits and war materials pouring in, he had the town councilors substitute busses for their antiquated tram-cars, including late busses for moviegoers. He entertained well and often, guzzling beer in soldier-size quantities. He liked chess and horseback riding as well as motorcycling and engineering. He intervened to save their horses for a few squadrons who were downcast by the cavalry's motorization. The soldiers of his division called him "The Old Man" for his paternalism. When September 1 came last year, the 21st Army Corps fought for him like fearless robots to take Graudenz, Poland's corner-pillar in the Corridor.