Heinz Guderian

Heinz Guderian (1888-1954), German general, leading theorist and exponent of tank warfare, who contributed greatly to the development of the blitzkrieg (“lightning war”) tactics of World War II.

Guderian was born the son of an army officer on June 17, 1888, in Kulm, Germany (now Chelmno, Poland), and was educated in various military schools. In 1908 he was commissioned 2nd lieutenant in the Jaegers, and later served at the War Academy in Berlin. He spent most of World War I as a staff officer, where he developed a specialized knowledge of motorized transport, joining the General Staff of the Army High Command at the rank of captain in 1918.

After the war Guderian developed an interest in tank warfare, although the much-reduced army was forbidden tanks by the Treaty of Versailles. In 1922 he became inspector of motorized troops, and began to study and develop the ideas of British military writers such as Basil Liddell Hart and Major-General John Fuller, who advocated independent armoured formations supported by air and motorized infantry that could quickly penetrate the battlefields, encircling and trapping entire armies. Guderian subsequently held several motorized commands, and in 1935 his ideas received the full support of Adolf Hitler, despite opposition from many conservative officers about the value of tanks, and three panzer (tank) divisions, with Guderian commanding one of them, were created. In 1938 Guderian’s panzers spearheaded both the Anschluss and the invasion of the Sudetenland, and the following year he was promoted to general and appointed chief of mobile troops by Hitler.

In World War II Guderian commanded panzer corps in the German attacks on Poland in September 1939 and in the West in May 1940. In the latter, although under the command of General Paul von Kliest, Guderian largely followed his own plan and attacked at great speed towards the English Channel, splitting the Allied armies in two, leading to the evacuation from Dunkirk of the British Expeditionary Force and the ultimate capitulation of France the following month. In Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Guderian led a panzer army, and despite initial successes, strong Soviet resistance and the severe Russian winter convinced Guderian of the need to withdraw to better defensive ground. Hitler and Guderian’s superior, General von Kluge, disagreed, and on December 25, 1941, Guderian was sacked.

In March 1943, after the defeats at El ’Alamein and Stalingrad, Hitler recalled Guderian and made him inspector general of armoured troops, with responsibilities for tank production. After the failed July Plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944, Guderian became chief of the general staff. However, he argued with Hitler over strategy and in March 1945 was sacked again. Guderian was later captured by the US Army, but he was released from captivity in June 1948 once it was decided that he had neither direct responsibility for nor clear knowledge of war crimes.

Guderian’s writings included Achtung! Panzer! (1937; “Attention! Tank!”) and Erinnerungen eines Soldaten (1951; “Reminiscences of a Soldier”; trans. Panzer Leader). He died on May 17, 1954, in Schwangau bei Füssen, West Germany.