Heinz Guderian

The Early Days

Heinz Guderian was born in 1888 at Chulm, on the Vistula, in Poland. In 1907 he joined the 10th Hanoverian Jaeger Battalion as an ensign and completed a course at the War Academy just before the beginning of WWI. During that conflict he was employed as a signals officer both at the front and at Army headquarters. The signals experience he gained was to stand him in good stead in his later handling of armored formations.
Following the war Guderian became a staunch advocate of the introduction of the panzer arm. In 1929 he was given command of the 3rd Prussian Motorized Battalion. In 1931 he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and was made Chief of Staff to General of Panzer Troops, Oswald Lutz. In 1933 he demonstrated the earliest Mark I tanks to Hitler at Kummersdoff and the new Chancellor told him excitedly: 'That's what I need! That's what I want to have!'
In the spring of 1934 a Motorized Troops Command Staff was set up under Lutz, in preparation for the formation of the first three Panzer Divisions in October of that year. Guderian remained in this post for over two years, becoming a Major General in 1936. In 1937 he published a book entitled 'Achtung-Panzer! The Development of Armoured Forces, Their Tactics and Operational Potential.' The book outlined his theories on armoured warfare which he evolved from British and French experiences during WWI. At the time his ideas were considered revolutionary, even foolhardy. In 1938 Guderian, having been promoted to Lieutenant General, succeeded Lutz as General of Panzer Troops.

The French Campaign

Guderian's dash, technical skill and wholehearted belief in the massed use of armor was given ample opportunity to prove itself in the Polish and French campaigns. He also championed the close coordination of aircraft with the panzers. The successes achieved by the panzer forces thoroughly vindicated his views and proved what could be achieved by a coordinated, mobile, all arms force. During the French campaign Guderian commanded the 29th Panzer Corps with brilliance, and their breakthrough at Sedan and subsequent dash to the Channel at Abbeville and Calais was quite stunning.
Although he favored the use of tanks in the attack he was by no means scornful of defence. He had much to do with the formation of anti-tank companies within the armored divisions.

Barbarossa

A great advocate of the German-Soviet Pact of 1939, Guderian was disgusted when he heard about Hitler's plan to invade Russia and scoffed at the view that Russian forces could be defeated in eight to ten weeks. In his memoirs he described his thoughts when first being briefed on the forthcoming operation Barbarossa: 'when they spread a map of Russia before me I could scarcely believe my eyes.' He was all the more sceptical because many of the vehicles given to the new divisions being formed for the Russian campaign were captured French vehicles and were: 'in no way up to meeting the demands of warfare in eastern Europe.'
For Barbarossa, Guderian's 2nd Panzer Gruppe disposed of some 850 tanks. It was comprised of five panzer, three motorized infantry and one invaluable cavalry Division, split into three Corps.
At the beginning of the Russian campaign Guderian advanced from Brest-Litovsk to the Dnepr in only fifteen days. However he resented being restrained by his Army commander, the more cautious Von Kluge. The pair often battled against each other instead of devoting their efforts against the Russians. On the 1st of July Guderian ordered the 17th Panzer Division to move to Borisov to reinforce the 18th Panzer Division there. However Kluge countermanded the order, telling them to remain where they were. This failed to happen and that night Guderian informed Kluge's HQ that a 'mishap in the communication of orders to 17th Panzer had led to them moving to Borisov and it was now too late to do anything about it'. Guderian was summoned to Kluge's HQ the next morning and in his words: 'was strongly taken to task!'
On July the 9th, Kluge personally flew to Guderian's HQ and ordered him to halt at the Dnepr and wait for the infantry to catch up. Guderian was convinced that he must cross the river and managed to convince Kluge saying: 'the operation has already gone too far to be cancelled' and that 'the operation could decide the Russian campaign in this very year'. Kluge finally agreed, though he told Guderian 'your operations always hang by a thread'. Once across the river Guderian's panzer Corps destroyed the Russian 13th and 19th Armies around Mogilev. Smolensk fell on the 15th of July, although Russian forces encircled to the east of the city continued fighting until the 26th, when they broke out eastwards. Following a meeting with the commander of Army Group Center, Von Bock, on the 27th of July, Guderian noted: 'the relationship between myself and the commander of 4th Army has become strained to an undesirable degree, owing to divergence's of opinion concerning the situation'.
On the 1st of August Guderian launched his Roslavl offensive. The 4th Panzer and 29th Motorized Divisions crossed the Sozh River and struck towards Gomel. The attack sent the Russian 21st Army reeling and by the 8th of August, Guderian's force had encircled and destroyed some ten Russian divisions. However on the 15th of August, after weeks of hesitation, Hitler halted the advance of Army Group Center towards Moscow and gave the Ukraine and Crimea priority over the Russian capital.
Guderian was in despair. His army group commander Von Bock sent him and Halder, the OKH Chief of Staff, to see Hitler on the 23rd of August to try to change the decision. Although forbidden by Von Brauchitsch, C-in-C of the Army, to mention Moscow, Guderian forcefully stated his case. Hitler heard him out, but then cited economic considerations as being of primary importance. Guderian noted: 'I saw here for the first time a spectacle with which I was later to become very familiar. All those present nodded in agreement with every sentence Hitler uttered, while I was left alone with my point of view'. Guderian was silenced and the decision was taken to turn south.
On the 24th of August, Manstein was ordered to relinquish two of his panzer Divisions and transfer them to 2nd Army to take part in an attack on Rogochev. Guderian refused saying that the move would place too great a strain on the vehicles. He then proceeded to clear his right flank in the Krichev area, destroying three Russian Division and reaching the Sozh River. By the 26th of August, the leading elements of Guderian's Panzer Gruppe were approaching Korop
On the 3rd of September Guderian's force crossed the Desna River and by the 15th had linked up with units from the 1st Panzer Gruppe at Lokhvitsa, encircling four Russian Armies to the east of Kiev. The Russian forces began to withdraw from Kiev on the 18th of September and fought on within the pocket until the 25th.

The March to Moscow

In October the attack on Moscow was resumed and Guderian's Panzer Gruppe advanced on an axis through Orel towards Moscow from the southwest. By the 3rd of October Guderian had reached Orel after a penetration of almost 120 miles. After capturing the town he noted: 'Our seizure of the town took the enemy so completely by surprise, that the trams were still running as our tanks drove in'.
By the 6th of October he had reached Briansk, capturing the town two days later. On the 9th, Guderian's 18th Panzer Division linked up with 2nd Army's 113th Infantry Division, to the northeast of the city, trapping three Russian Armies in the Briansk pocket.
However the same day the advance of the 4th Panzer Division was temporarily halted at Mtsensk by tanks of the Russian 4th Armored Brigade. The Brigade had recently been equipped with new T-34's and they markedly outclassed the German panzers, especially in the poor ground conditions that prevailed. It was three days before the Division was able to resume its advance and enter the town. The Russians attacked again and this time the division was badly mauled. Guderian noted: 'up to this point we have had tank superiority, but this is no longer the case!' He urgently requested that a commission be sent to study the T-34 and incorporate its features into future German designs. He also requested that an anti tank gun capable of destroying the T-34 be provided immediately.
The Russian 50th Army defending Tula had been strongly reinforced and had turned the town into a fortress. Guderian pushed his Gruppe east and then north around the town. But strong Russian counter attacks in the Tula area on the 17th of November halted Guderian once more. At the time he wrote to his wife: 'the icy cold, the wretched accommodation, the insufficient clothing, the heavy losses of men and material and the meager supplies of fuel are making military operations a torture. I am getting increasingly depressed by the enormous weight of responsibility which, in spite of all the words, no-one can take off my shoulders.' On the 24th, he visited Von Bock's HQ to complain about the condition of his Gruppe and the difficulties he was having carrying out his task. He told Bock: 'the orders I had received had to be changed since I could see no way of properly carrying them out.' Following a phone conversation with Army HQ, he was told to limit his efforts to reaching Zaraisk and cutting the Ryazan railway.
On the 27th of November the 1st Guards Cavalry Corps attacked the 17th Panzer Division near Kashira and drove it back. By the 2nd of December Guderian was forced to go over to the defensive.
By the 6th of December, pressed by the Russian 10th and 50th Armies and the 1st Guards Cavalry Corps he began to withdraw towards the Shat and Don Rivers.
On the 20th of December Guderian again visited Hitler, in East Prussia. He requested that the German line be withdrawn to better positions, a considerable distance if need be. Hitler refused on the grounds that any authorization of retreat would lead to general panic. Guderian forced the issue, saying: 'Positional warfare in this unsuitable terrain will lead to battles of material as in the First World War. We shall lose the flower of our officer and N.C.O. corps. We shall suffer huge losses without gaining any advantage. And these losses will be irreplaceable.' He went on to say that there seemed no justification to him for sacrificing his soldiers lives. Hitler replied: 'I know all about your personal effort, and how you lead your troops from in front. But for this reason you are in danger of seeing things too much at close quarters. You are hamstrung by too much compassion for your men. Things look clearer from a greater distance. In order to hold the front no sacrifice can be too great. For if we do not hold it then Army Group Center will be lost.'

Dismissal and Reappointment

On the 24th of December Von Kluge accused Guderian of evacuating Chern without authority, creating a dangerous gap of twenty-five miles. Hitler dismissed him from his command, already alarmed and angered at the talk of tactical withdrawal.
His dismissal sent Guderian into the wilderness for over a year and was to prevent his ever becoming a Field Marshal. It also ended his active command career. For nearly fourteen months Guderian remained unemployed, with the additional misfortune of suffering a bad heart attack.
He was recalled to service on the 1st of March 1943 as Inspector-General of Armored Troops. He was given a wide range of powers and exerted considerable influence. More important was the fact that he reported to Hitler directly. Guderian was far from satisfied with vehicle development and production figures and set out to correct these shortcomings. In late January 1942, Hitler had ordered overall tank production to be raised to a capacity of 600 per month. By April 1943 Guderian had raised that figure to 1,955.
But when Hitler held an important conference at Munich on 4th May 1943 to discuss the proposed attack against the Russians west of Kursk, 'Operation Citadel', Guderian spoke strongly against it. His objections were based on the fact that neither the Panther tank nor the Ferdinand were yet properly ready and urged the Fuhrer to refrain from attacking in the East that year. However he was ignored and the offensive went ahead with disastrous results.
The events of the assassination attempt against Hitler on the 20th July 1944, shocked Guderian. According to his memoirs, he knew absolutely nothing about the plot and for this we must take his word. But Guderian is less than frank about the various approaches made to him previously by the conspirators, mentioning only one by Von Tresckow in July 1943. However Guderian would have no part in a conspiracy against Hitler. He was against the assassination attempt because he doubted in any case whether a change of regime would be of any avail to the war effort. Against his will, he had to serve as a member of the military Court of Honour which sat chiefly to dismiss the accused from the armed services in preparation for their arraignment before the People's Court. Nevertheless, the fact that Hitler chose Guderian to head the General Staff shows that he had no doubts of the validity of Guderian's convictions.
His appointment as Chief of the General Staff after the July plot in 1944 came as a surprise, but by now Hitler was using the Chief of Staff as little more than a glorified messenger boy and it is doubtful whether Guderian should have accepted the post. As it was, if he believed at this late stage that he would be able to influence events decisively, he was mistaken. He had no more influence on Hitler than any of his predecessors.
But the old dogmatism reasserted itself and his readiness to stand up to Hitler provoked many bitter and even violent clashes between them. For example, Guderian requested again and again that the wasted Army Group of 16th and 18th Armies trapped in the Courland pocket, be evacuated and used elsewhere. Repeatedly Hitler demurred, claiming that the forces in the pocket were tying down a large Russian force. He was also doubtful about the Ardennes offensive, and when he saw early on that it had failed he pleaded for Hitler to break it off and use the troops for reinforcing the threatened eastern front. He also correctly forecast the 12th of January 1945 as the date of the next major Russian offensive. Hitler would have none of it and ridiculed the intelligence reports as 'completely idiotic'.
There were also arguments about Hungary, about Poland, about the performance, appointment and dismissals of generals. An eyewitness to events, Captain Gerhard Boldt, wrote: 'their mutual hostility was partly due to basic differences of opinion about military tactics. But a strong additional factor and one, which will always be to Guderian's credit, was the way in which he mustered the courage, time and again, to openly contradict and warn Hitler. He was one of the very few men in Hitler's entourage who stood by his own views and who was bold enough to contradict the Fuhrer without restraint at that time.'

The Final Insult

The last clash came when Guderian was defending General Theodor Busse, commander of 9th Army, whom Hitler was holding responsible for the failure to relieve Kistrin. This scene, in the Reich Chancellery on the 28th of March 1945, almost defies description or belief. Hitler was ranting and raving against the Army, the General Staff, the whole Officer Corps, and the Generals. Guderian hotly criticized Hitler's military leadership and the abandonment to their fate of the people of eastern Germany. In the end it looked as though he would provoke a physical assault from the Fuhrer, now quite out of control with rage. Horrified onlookers had to separate them by force. Afterwards Hitler said: 'Colonel-General Guderian, your physical health requires that you immediately take six weeks leave.' It was a dismal and almost farcical end to such an accomplished career. At the end of the war Guderian surrendered to the Americans. Denazification proceedings were instituted against him, but were dropped in June 1950.

Conclusion

Guderian was an uncompromising, burly figure and was at his best when handling aggressive operations. This suited his personality, which was essentially that of a hard-striking armored leader prepared to take risks. Critics have accused him of being bull-like in his methods and he was certainly not a man of subtlety. However he was too well trained an expert in the handling of armor to be foolhardy. He could also be somewhat dictatorial in his methods and was not an easy man to command. He was popular with his troops, with whom he maintained a breezy yet demanding relationship. Guderian was always well forward with his leading elements, urging them on and frequently risking his own mobile headquarters. All the units of his Corps wore a white G painted on their vehicles, a practice which he was the first to introduce. He was admired and respected by most of his peers.
In 1954 Heinz Guderian, Panzer leader par excellence, died in Bavaria at the age of 66.