PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
www.penguin.com
This translation first published in the USA by Dutton 1952
Published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph 1952
Published with a new introduction in the USA by Da Capo Press 1996
Published as a Classic Penguin 2000
Reissued in this edition 2009
Introduction copyright © Kenneth Macksey, 1996
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author of the introduction has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject
to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s
prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-14-195739-5
List of appendices
List of illustrations
List of sketch maps
Introduction
Foreword
1. Background and Youth
2. The Creation of the German Armoured Force
3. Hitler at the Peak of his Power
1938. The Blomberg–Fritsch crisis
The Incorporation of Austria into the Reich
The Incorporation of the Sudetenland into the Reich
The Situation Deteriorates Once Again
4. The Beginning of the Disaster
The Drift to War
The Polish Campaign
Between the Campaigns
5. The Campaign in the West
Preparations for the Campaign
The Break-through to the Channel
The Capture of the Channel Ports
Hitler’s Momentous Order to Stop
The Break-through to the Swiss Border
The Armistice
6. The Campaign in Russia, 1941
The Background
Preparations
Opening Operations
Crossing the Dnieper
Smolensk-Elnya-Roslavl
Moscow or Kiev?
The Battle of Kiev
The Battles of Orel and Bryansk
The Advance to Tula and Moscow
My First Dismissal
7. On Inactive Service
8. The Development of the Armoured Force, January 1942 to February 1943
9. Inspector-General of Armoured Troops
Appointment and First Actions
Dr. Goerdeler’s Visits
‘Operation Citadel’
Disagreements during the Second Half of 1943
The Year of Decision
10. July 20th and its Sequel
11. Chief of the General Staff
Operations on the Eastern Front
The Ardennes Offensive
Defensive Preparations in the East
The Russian Offensive
12. The Final Collapse
13. Leading Personalities of the Third Reich
Hitler
The Party
The National and District Controllers
Hitler’s Intimate Circle
The Government
14. The German General Staff
‘To Be or Not to Be, That is the Question!’
Index
PANZER LEADER
Heinz Guderian was born in 1888, the son of a Prussian General. He attended the War School at Metz and was then commissioned into the German Army. He spent the First World War as a technical and staff officer. After the war he remained with the small army that Germany was allowed to retain under the Treaty of Versailles. At this time he specialized in military transport technology, working on the secret development of tanks, which had been prohibited by the Treaty. When Hitler repudiated the restrictions of the Treaty in 1937, Guderian was created General of Panzer Troops, and in 1938 published a book on armoured warfare entitled Achtung! Panzer!
During the Second World War Guderian commanded forces invading Poland, France and the Soviet Union, successfully employing the blitzkrieg warfare method of massed firepower. His military career was, however, chequered by clashes with Hitler and General von Kluge, and he was dismissed and reinstated a number of times. Hitler made him Army Chief of Staff in 1944, but finally dismissed him in March 1945. After the Second World War, Guderian was interrogated about war crimes by the Nuremberg Tribunal. He was released without being indicted after it was decided he did not have direct responsibility or knowledge of the atrocities committed during the war. Panzer Leader was published in 1952. Guderian died in 1953.
1. My Military Appointments
2. O.K.W. Directive No. 1 for the Prosecution of the War (31.8.1939)
3. Report by the Inspector-General of Armoured Troops on the Organisation and Strength of the Armoured Troops in the Western Campaign
4. XIX Army Corps, Corps Order (12.5.40)
5. XIX Army Corps, Warning Order for the Meuse Crossing (12.5.40)
1st Panzer Division, Divisional Order No. 4 (12.5.40)
10th Panzer Division, Warning Order for the Meuse Crossing (12.5.40)
6. XIX Army Corps, Corps Order No. 3 for the Attack across the Meuse (13.5.40)
1st Panzer Division, Divisional Order No. 5 for the Attack across the Meuse (13.5.40)
10th Panzer Division, Divisional Order for the Attack across the Meuse (13.5.40)
7. XIX Army Corps, Corps Order, 13.5.40, 22.30 hrs.
8. XIX Army Corps, Corps Order No. 5, 14.5.40
9. XIX Army Corps, Corps Order No. 7, 16.5.40
10. XIX Army Corps, Corps Order No. 8, 18.5.40
11. XIX Army Corps, Corps Order No. 9, 18.5.40
12. XIX Army Corps, Corps Order, 18.5.40, 13.00 hrs.
13. XIX Army Corps, Corps Order No. 10, 19.5.40
14. XIX Army Corps, Corps Order 20.5.40, 16.30 hrs.
15. XIX Army Corps, Corps Order No. 11, 20.5.40
16. XIX Army Corps, Preliminary Order No. 12, 21.5.40
Group von Kleist, Group Order No. 12, 21.5.40
17. Group von Kleist, Group Order No. 13, 22.5.40
18. XIX Army Corps, Corps Order No. 13, 25.5.40
19. XIX Army Corps, Order for the Relief of 1st Panzer Division by 20th (Motorised) Infantry Division, 26.5.40
20. XIX Army Corps, Corps Order No. 14, 26.5.40
21. XIX Army Corps, Corps Order No. 15, 28.5.40
22. A Hitler Order: Directive No. 21, ‘Operation Barbarossa.’ 18.12.40
23. The Organisation of the Command of the Armed Forces, 1944
24. War Establishment of a Panzer Division as of 15.10.35
25. War Establishment of a Panzer Division as of 9.5.40
Portrait of the author
1. At an artillery observation post
2. Polish summer landscape
3. Battle for an emplacement near Vizna
4. Brest-Litovsk: The Russians take over
5. In an armoured command vehicle
6. Boulogne: The assault on the town wall
7. The attack rolls on
8. Advancing as though on manœuvres: tanks move forward (Champagne, June 1940)
9. Lieutenant-Colonel Balck handing over a flag captured at Juniville
10. Dawn, June 22, 1941
11. Russia: The road forward
12. Bridge-building over the Dnieper near Kopys
13. The Battle of Shklov
14. Crossing the Dnieper near Kopys
15. With General Marras on the banks of the Dnieper near Kopys
16. Before the attack
17. An anti-tank ditch in the Stalin Line
18. Near Roslavl, August 5, 1941
19. Panzer Regiment 35 advancing before the Battle of Gorodishtche
20. The outskirts of Orel on the Oka: a typical Russian town
21. Dmitrovsk: early winter
22. Night battle before Moscow, 1941
1. General Sketch Map 1: The advance into Poland. Situation 31.8-5.9.39
2. Sketch Map 1: The battle of Tuchel Heath, 2-3.9.39
3. General Sketch Map 2: The advance into Poland. Situation 9.9-18.9.39.
4. Sketch Map 2: Advance of XXI Army Corps to Brest-Litovsk. Situation 8.9-17.9.39
5. Sketch Map 3a: Advance of XIX Army Corps through the Ardennes.
6. Sketch Map 3b: Advance of XIX Army Corps to the Channel Coast
7. Sketch Map 4: Battle for the Meuse Crossings. Situation 13.5-15.5.40.
8. Sketch Map 5: Battle for the Channel Ports. Situation 24.5-28/29.5.40
9. Sketch Map 6: Break through the Weygand Line to the Plateau de Langres. Situation 11.6-15.6.40.
10. Sketch Map 7: Break through to the Swiss Border and into Upper Alsace. Situation 16.6-20.6.40
11. Sketch Map 8: Advance eastwards of Panzer Group Guderian. Situation 22.6-28.6.41
12. Sketch Map 9: Developments 28.6-2.7.41
13. Sketch Map 10: Developments 3.7-10.7.41
14. Sketch Map 11: Crossing the Dnieper and Smolensk. Situation 11.7-16.7.41
15. Sketch Map 12: Elnya. Situation 17.7-20.7.41
16. Sketch Map 13: Roslavl. Situation 30.7-3.8.41
17. Sketch Map 14: Krichev—Miloslavitchi. Situation 9.8.41
18. Sketch Map 15: Situation on 17.8.41
19. Sketch Map 16: Situation on 24.8.41 (Conference with Hitler)
20. Sketch Map 17: Situation 26.8.41. Developments to 31.8.41
21. Sketch Map 18: The Battle of Kiev. Situation 4.9-14.9.41
22. Sketch Map 19: Crisis at Romny—Putivl. Situation 18.9.41
23. Sketch Map 20: Developments 19.9-22.9.41
24. Sketch Map 21: Situation on 23.9.41
25. Sketch Map 22: Situation on 30.9.41.
26. Sketch Map 23: Orel. Situation on 5.10.41
27. Sketch Map 24: Situation on 14.10.41
28. Sketch Map 25: Advance to Tula. Situation 27.10-14.11.41
29. Sketch Map 26: The Battle for Moscow. Situation 1.12–5.12.41
30. Sketch Map 27: Developments in the East, 22.2.43-4.3.44
31. Sketch Map 27a: Operations by 25 Panzer Division, November 1943
32. Sketch Map 28: The Destruction of Army Group Centre. Situation 22.6-1.8.44
33. Sketch Map 29: Developments in the Baltic States. Situation 23.7-4.10.44
34. Sketch Map 30: The Cutting-off of Army Group North. Situation 5.10-25.10.44
35. Sketch Map 31: The Loss of Rumania. Situation 16.3-4.10.44
36. Sketch Map 32: The Battles in Hungary. Situation 5.10-21.12.44
37. Sketch Map 33: The Catastrophe in January 1945. Situation 12.1-25.1.45
In the fantasy world of Adolf Hitler’s Germany very few General Staff Corps generals received a hero’s treatment from Josef Goebbels’s propagandists. Fewer still were also sacked by the Führer, only to be reinstated later. One such—and, indeed, the first to receive major public acclaim—was Heinz Guderian. He began to attract public notice in 1937 when his best-selling book about tanks, Achtung! Panzer!, was published. It not only established him as a forceful writer and personality, but also made clear that, as the brains behind the newly created Panzertruppe, he was a soldier to be reckoned with in any future war. Between September 1939 and November 1941 Guderian’s reputation grew further as he displayed colossal verve and brilliant fighting in the campaigns against Poland, France, and Soviet Russia. The striking successes of his blitzkrieg technique not only enhanced his professional standing as a soldier, but also vindicated the revolutionary principles underlying this new type of “lightning” warfare that Guderian had developed and would reaffirm in 1942 with his little-known book, Mit den Panzern in Ost und West.
After the war he indelibly recorded for history his role in the Third Reich’s rise and fall in Erinnerungen eines Soldaten (Memoirs of a Soldier), of which Panzer Leader is a translation. When first published in Germany, Erinnerungen received muted, though fair, notices from the critics, but was read with intense interest by the public. For this was the first book by a general to give authentic insight into the German war effort and campaigns, and into the author’s own relations with the High Command and with Hitler. By 1953 it was a bestseller. This edition is but the latest of the many in different languages which have since been published—a clear indication of its enduring value as a standard work of reference.
Panzer Leader is about one man’s endeavor, at a moment of institutional change, to defend his country by the modernization of its army. It has no pretensions to being an autobiography, although there are numerous passages which reveal the innermost thoughts and workings of an honest, outspoken patriot of passionate beliefs. Only two pages are allocated to an outline of his life prior to 1922, when he was pitched into a General Staff post with the Inspectorate of Transport Troops. It was an appointment that ideally suited his dynamic, innovative temperament, and one that led him to understand the vital importance of mechanization and the tank in restoring armored mobility for combat troops engaged in maneuver warfare.
Guderian was a modest person who, as I discovered while writing his biography, Guderian: Panzer General, was uncomfortable in the glare of publicity. In letters to his wife, this outstanding modern leader (as Field Marshal Kesselring rated him) deprecated the adulation of General Erwin Rommel generated by Goebbels’s Propaganda Ministry. As a fervent believer in the rules of the old great General Staff, he adhered to the tradition of “Achieve much, appear little” by maintaining a low profile while a staff officer. Yet, once given command, he was quite unable to suppress his natural charisma and strong opinions when thrusting ahead with revolutionary matters, regardless of controversy and, sometimes, obedience.
Nevertheless, it was the ingrained low profile of the General Staff officer that probably led Guderian in Panzer Leader to play down certain fundamental reasons why he was so effective and intuitive an innovator. For unlike many ex-infantry General Staff officers, he was by the end of the First World War (as a result of his training and experience) a technologist. He had trained as a signals specialist; had come to understand air power by flying on reconnaissance missions as an observer; had gained practical experience as a logistician when serving as a supply staff officer; and, as a light infantryman (and the son of one), was ever imbued with the need for quick thinking, speed, and mobility in combat. More than that, as a rapid learner trained to draw conclusions from every fact and opinion, he was impatient with intellects slower than his own. Guderian did not always suffer fools gladly. For example, after the Battle of the Marne in 1914, as a mere 2nd Lieutenant in command of the 5th Cavalry Division’s wireless station, he took the divisional commander to task for misemploying his detachment and nearly, incidentally, landing him in a French prisoner-of-war camp!
Guderian was a Prussian who sometimes seemed more Prussian than the Prussians. He was proud, dignified, honorable, kind, and courtly, with a twinkling sense of humor. Major Kenneth Hechler, an American interrogating officer, wrote after the war: “I did not have the feeling that he twisted any of his real opinions in order to say what he felt an American would like to hear. He responded quickly to all the questions and I do not believe that he was trying to make any particular impression or grind an axe.”
Hechler’s high opinion laid the foundations for Panzer Leader. It was he who recommended that, while in captivity between May 1945 and June 1948, Guderian should be an important contributor among the 2,000 or more German officers selected to record their experiences and opinions of Germany’s conduct of World War Two. A previous Chief of the General Staff, General Franz Halder, designed this stupendous project as a trilogy dealing with OKH (the Army High Command) as it was; OKH as it should have been; and OKH as it should be. Guderian, the last Chief of the General Staff, and at loggerheads with Halder, was given the task of commenting on the first two parts and running the third. This was an indication of the special regard in which the Americans held him, particularly for his prejudices and pride intermingled with caustic shafts aimed at adversaries. Hundreds of documents, some of considerable length, were compiled to create a remarkable, comprehensive archive. Among the contributors were several who, like Guderian, seized on the opportunity, as a sideline, to assemble material for their own memoirs.
Panzer Leader concentrates on four main themes:
1. The struggle to create and develop the Panzertruppe and panzer formations, including the acquisition of good equipment.
2. The brilliant campaigns of 1939, 1940, and 1941.
3. The attempt to rebuild the Panzertruppe and the army after the disasters in Russia and North Africa at the start of 1943.
4. The efforts to save Germany, when on the brink of defeat in 1944, by attempting to create conditions for peace on reasonable terms.
Until August 23, 1941, when he was suggested for Army Commander in Chief in place of the weak Field Marshal Werner von Brauchitsch, Guderian’s star was very much in the ascendant. He was his own man. When in 1929 he became convinced that tanks in combination with other weapons would revolutionize land warfare, it was from deep studies of history, recent British experiments, and the writings chiefly of British General J. F. C. Fuller; not to the same extent as those of B. H. Liddell Hart, regardless of the third paragraph on page 20 (inserted in the English-language edition of Panzer Leader at Liddell Hart’s own dogged suggestion) where Guderian acknowledges his “debt” to Liddell Hart.
Throughout the 1930s Guderian worked skillfully and with considerable success, both as a staff officer and a commander, to modernize the army. It was a struggle against conservatism within an organization divided by factions. There were those who could not visualize the psychological and physical effects created by fast-moving armored forces, coordinated by radio and led by a commander from the front. Others feared that an almost defenseless Germany might again be drawn into war and defeated by old enemies from both east and west. Interwoven with the military factions was that other insidious force with which but few generals knew how to cope: the Nazi Party with all its evil militias and ideologies, led by the criminally-minded Adolf Hitler.
From 1933 onwards, the dilemmas posed by that war-loving demagogue dominated Guderian’s career. As one among many Germans who yearned for a savior for a nation whose power and influence had lain in the doldrums since 1919, he believed Hitler was the right politician for the job. From 1934 Guderian supported him with special enthusiasm after the demonstration at Kummersdorf, when he managed to convince the Führer of the revolutionary potential of armored forces in battle.
Yet his letters revealed misgivings about a politician who cleverly managed to be all things to all men. Along with the rest of the army, he was compelled to swear a personal oath of allegiance to Hitler on August 2, 1934. Nobody refused (at a mere 48 hours notice were they likely to?), though in a letter to his wife he entered a thoughtful caveat: “The army is accustomed to keep its oath. May the army be able, in honor, to do so this time.” Unfortunately, the army’s leaders, caught off balance by Hitler’s craftiness, had already sold out to him by forfeiting the decisive political power they had once wielded.
The oath posed the most intractable dilemma in the years to come as he contributed strongly to rebuilding an army which, almost unprecedented by 1940, was perfectly designed and trained to overcome every other army in the world. How could he satisfy honor while conducting unprovoked campaigns of aggression with the knowledge that, in the aftermath of each victory, the people of Poland, Yugoslavia, and Soviet Russia were to be treated as inferior and exterminated? Guderian never was comfortable with this problem, so he chose to ignore it. Presented with an opportunity to defy Hitler over a crisis of opinion in Russia in August 1941, he chose to obey on the excuse that it was wrong, by tradition, to oppose a superior officer’s resolved decision. Not even after he was sacked for disobeying Hitler’s unsound orders in December 1941 would he join the handful of resisters plotting against the Head of State. But, after all, those few Germans who eventually did rebel still held back until it became evident in 1942 that Germany might lose the war.
The third part of the story, the rebuilding of the Panzertruppe and the army after Stalingrad, must be seen in the context of the fourth—the attempt to save Germany, on the brink of defeat, from her own excesses. There is very little doubt that by then Guderian saw no hope of victory and had already formulated a resolve to do all he could, within the meaning of the oath of allegiance, to save the nation from extinction. His fortuitous recall in February 1943 to serve as Inspector of Armored Forces, reporting directly to Hitler, presented unique opportunities to pursue that aim.
With that in mind, the remainder of the book should be read as the description of a long, drawn-out, psychological, as well as military, withdrawal, phased to win time for a miraculous salvation—rather in the way Prussia had been saved from defeat in the Seven Years War by the fortuitous withdrawal of Russia in 1762.
How he attempted the virtually impossible is perhaps among the most fascinating passages of Panzer Leader. Crisis by crisis, until July 20, 1944, when a handful of blundering plotters failed to blow up Hitler and seize power, he skillfully, but mostly unavailingly, endeavored to divert Hitler from perpetrating heinous errors. He continued deftly to sidestep involvement with the plotters, whom he neither approved of nor had confidence in. Without admitting knowledge of the assassination’s imminence, Guderian managed, most uncharacteristically, to be out of contact while taking a long walk around his estate; thus, again without admitting it, he was poised either to side with the plotters if successful or fill a gap if they failed. This is a gray area. Nowhere else in Panzer Leader is he so evasive or so far below his normal standards of behavior.
The outcome of this sleight of hand, for which he was later maligned by some Germans, was elevation to Chief of Staff (acting), the one post which, so he hoped, might make possible the achievement of his aim. Might he not “with the Führer’s close confidence” be able to tackle the dreaded task of ending the war that Guderian and his wife often discussed as a possibility, even as the enemy drew close to Germany’s frontiers on two fronts? Rumors that he had betrayed the plotters were bandied about, but easily disposed of, if only because no general was likely to relish the dangerous nightmare of becoming Chief of Staff to a Commander in Chief who was ferociously hunting down, torturing, and killing generals, or anybody else, remotely suspected of disloyalty.
Throughout the ensuing eight dramatic months Guderian rose to his greatest heights of patriotism and courage by daily opposing Hitler’s outrageous decisions. Official records, besides his own testimony, make clear his struggle until in early February 1945 he did what no general had done before—outface Hitler in a (literally) stand-up row over yet another ludicrous order. The unimaginable had happened! With admiration Albert Speer watched Hitler, “with flashing eyes and the hairs on his moustache literally standing on end,” being intimidated by Guderian’s assault.
Prior to that, however, Guderian had taken his life in his hands by collaborating with Speer in attempting to limit further damage to German industry and by trying to persuade Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop to end the war by diplomacy before the rest of the country was destroyed. But a terrified Ribbentrop failed him, as did the equally frightened head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler. It was all far too late, of course. But at least Guderian had shown what might have been done if in the early 1930s a general of commanding stature had stood up to Hitler and stopped the Nazi rot before it took hold.
For even at this late hour, one or two among Hitler’s sycophants drew courage from Guderian’s example, belatedly preventing the last of Hitler’s wild excesses. On March 28 a belligerent and still-protesting Guderian escaped with his life when sent on four weeks convalescent leave. It was a clear sign that the last Chief of Staff of the German Army had achieved what no other surviving general had managed. Guderian had actually fought and won the respect of a thoroughly anti-general Supreme Commander, and then outlived the monster to tell his tale with dignity, honesty, and insight.
KENNETH MACKSEY
Dorset, England
April 1996
Kenneth Macksey served as an officer in the Royal Tank Regiment during World War II. The author of more than forty books on military history, including biographies of Field Marshals Kesselring and Rommel and Generals Guderian and Hobart, Macksey has also edited The Penguin Encyclopedia of Modern War, The Penguin Encyclopedia of Weapons and Military Technology, and The Hitler Options.
by
CAPTAIN B. H. LIDDELL HART
In this book a man who has made history—on a great scale—gives us his own story of how he shaped it by means of a new idea, and how it led to an end he had not foreseen. Guderian had a tremendous impact on the course of events in our time. Without him, it is probable that Hitler would have met early frustration in his offensive efforts when he embarked on war. For in 1939-40 Germany’s forces in general were not sufficient to overcome any major Power. Her opening run of victory in the Second World War was only made possible by the panzer forces that Guderian had created and trained, and by his audacious leading of those forces in disregard of his superiors’ caution as well as Hitler’s fears. Guderian’s break-through at Sedan and lightning drive to the Channel coast virtually decided the issue of the Battle of France.
A year later, the drive he led into the East came close to producing the complete collapse of Russia’s armies, but this time renewed hesitancy on top imposed a delay that spun out the campaign until winter intervened, and gave the Russians a breathing-space for recovery. Stalin was able to raise fresh armies and develop new arms factories to replace those that had been captured. Russia’s strength went on increasing, while Germany was never again as strong as in that first campaign. Hitler’s 1942 effort, though dangerous, was a more limited one than in the previous year. After the failure at Stalingrad the decline of the Germans’ power became manifest to all, while America’s entry into the war definitely ensured their downfall.
Thus the victories that Guderian had made possible proved more fatal than if no victory had been gained. Early blossom turned into bitter fruit.
He himself had an early foretaste of its juice, since at the end of 1941 he was dismissed for taking a timely step-back instead of pandering to Hitler’s illusions. He was recalled to service only when Germany’s situation had become desperate, and was eventually made Chief of the General Staff when it had become hopeless. So he was doomed to swallow the full bitterness of the dregs.
That retributive sequel to his work, however, does not affect his historical significance—in the moulding of history by the application of a new idea, of which he was both the exponent and executant. The conquest of the West did not last, but it changed the shape of Europe and has profoundly affected the future of the whole world. That is clear, although we cannot yet tell what will emerge.
Guderian’s book is also of great interest as a self-exposition of the specialist mind and how it works. He had far more imagination than most specialists, but it was exercised almost entirely within the bounds of his professional subject, and burning enthusiasm increased the intensity of his concentration.
Guderian was a single-minded soldier, professional in the truest sense—the quintessence of the craftsman in the way he devoted himself to the progress of a technique. In that pursuit he showed as little regard for careerist ambition, and the tact which it requires, as for the purpose such technical progress might serve. To understand him one must be capable of understanding the passion of pure craftsmanship. There one can find a natural explanation of his attitude to Hitler—clearly more favourable than that of most of the generals brought up in the old tradition. Hitler manifested a liking for new military ideas, and for the tank idea in particular, so Guderian was naturally disposed to like him. Hitler showed an inclination to back that revolutionary idea, so Guderian was inclined to back him. Hitler was in conflict with the General Staff and with established conventions; so was Guderian in his sphere—and thus the more ready to think well of Hitler, until disillusioned by what he saw for himself when he eventually came into close contact with the Führer.
It will be apparent to those who read his memoirs that he did not question the cause which he and his troops were serving, or the duty of fighting for their country. It was sufficient for him that she was at war, and thus in danger, however it had come about. The fulfilment of duty was not compatible with doubts. As a dutiful soldier he had to assume that his country’s cause was just, and that she was defending herself against would-be conquerors. His evident assumptions on that score may jar on readers outside Germany—conscious of the menace that their countries had to meet, from Germany. But his assumptions are similar to those of most soldiers of any country at any time. Few qualms of conscience are to be found in the memoirs of those who exercised command in the wars for highly questionable causes that Britain and the U.S.A. waged in the nineteenth century. There is a markedly ‘Victorian’ flavour about Guderian’s turn of phrase and thought.
Moreover, soldiers everywhere are accustomed to accept the time-honoured dictum that ‘attack is the best defence,’ so that they become apt to regard the difference between attack and defence as a tactical distinction between two interchangeable forms of action, with little or no bearing on the question of aggression. The greatest experts in the field of international law have found it difficult to frame an irrefutable definition of aggression, and aggressively minded statesmen have always found it easy to shift the blame on to the shoulders of their foreign opponents. An appeal to patriotism can befog the clearest issue, and those who are most imbued with the sense of duty to country are, and are bound to be, the easiest to deceive and to silence. Soldiers are not trained to explore the truth behind international disputes, and if they try to wrestle with the resulting questions they are likely to become incapable of performing their task. There is a place, and a need, for the military philosopher in the study and guidance of war, but a profoundly reflective mind does not fit easily into the service itself.
As a practical necessity a commander in the field often has to take action without reflection, and, even when he has the time for it, a habit of reflecting on the remote consequences of the action ordered would tend to induce paralysis—save in a man with the most uncommon power of detachment (Wellington was one of these rare exceptions). So long as fighting services continue, it is essential for the performance of their task that they should be composed of those who confine their thinking to the effective execution of that task. ‘Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die.’ No nation that maintains fighting services can afford to revoke that rule of experience. Where soldiers begin to question the rightness of the cause for which they are fighting, armies soon collapse.
It is easy to condemn Guderian’s attitude as evidence of ‘unrepentant militarism’—but wiser to recognise that his basic assumptions were a necessity of military service. That he makes no pretence of discarding them now, to court favour, is typical of his brusque honesty—which so often brought him in conflict with his superiors, and with Hitler—as well as of the pugnacity that made him such a dynamic military reformer and commander.
Anyone who is ‘put off’ Guderian’s memoirs by dislike of his attitude will be foolish—as were those superiors who let irritation prejudice them against the value of his military ideas. This book is the fullest, most factual, and most revealing personal account of the war from the German side that has yet emerged. The fullness of detail, which is valuable for the record, is lightened in the reading by the vigour and frankness of the comment.
Guderian’s revelations, in the opening chapters, about the opposition he met in developing the panzer forces and the blitzkrieg technique will come as a surprise to many readers here who have a picture of the German General Staff as a far-sighted and united body of planners ceaselessly seeking to get a march ahead in preparation for the next war. (What he reveals will be less unexpected to those who know the nature of armies and their halting course throughout history.)
His story of the 1940 campaign not only brings out the hazards and uncertainties of the assault on the Meuse near Sedan, but conveys the pace and tempo of the follow-up drive to the Channel coast. It is almost like having a seat in Guderian’s car in that breathless race, and being able to watch him handling his panzer divisions. For me it was like the repetition of a dream, as it was just the way that in pre-war years I had pictured such a force being handled by a leader who grasped the new idea—only to be told, then, that the picture was unrealistic. When Hobart gave a demonstration of it in the 1934 exercises on Salisbury Plain, orthodox soldiers retorted that such a method would not work in war.
Guderian’s account of the 1941 advance into Russia provides by far the most detailed account yet available of that invasion. If the detail tends to slow down the tempo, his revelations about the conflicts within the German Command are very illuminating, and his picture of the ghastly final stages of the winter push for Moscow in mud and snow is extraordinarily vivid. Then comes the story of his own dismissal, and recall in 1943 to reorganise the panzer forces after the Stalingrad disaster. In the later chapters he throws new light on the breakdown of the plans to meet the Allied landing in Normandy.
When the situation became desperate he was summoned to take over the post of Chief of the General Staff, a post which was by that time limited to dealing with the Eastern Front, and further restricted by Hitler’s desire to control everything himself. While these limitations of function left Guderian little scope for effective influence, his appointment gave him ample opportunity for close observation of Hitler’s mind and emotions during the last stage of the war. Nothing could be more dramatic than his sober account of the disintegration of a demented dictator and a demoralised entourage. Guderian completes the story with character-sketches of Hitler and the other ‘Leading Personalities of the Third Reich’—and that chapter is the most interesting of all.
The acuteness and balance of these character sketches is notable. Those qualities may owe much to a characteristic of his which does not often appear directly in the book, but which strikes anyone who meets him—his sense of humour. It is the more refreshing because it is uncommon in his circle.
Although Guderian could do little to check the downslide he had done enough earlier, when in a nominally lower position, to establish his military fame for all time. With men of action, the place they fill in history is usually determined by the extent to which they have shaped history. Guderian’s achievements—his effect on the Second World War, and on warfare—put him on the top level as a soldier. Although he never enjoyed the nominal qualification of independent command, he applied the idea of the independent use of armoured forces so fully and decisively that he brought about victories which, measured by any standard, have hardly been matched in the records of warfare.
It is clear, too, that he possessed most of the qualities that distinguished the ‘Great Captains’ of history—coup d’æil, a blend of acute observation with swift-sure intuition; the ability to create surprise and throw the opponent off balance; the speed of thought and action that allows the opponent no chance of recovery; the combination of strategic and tactical sense; the power to win the devotion of troops, and get the utmost out of them. It is not so clear, because of differing evidence, whether he had another of the classic qualities: a sense of what is possible. But Guderian had an amazing knack of making ‘the impossible’ possible.
Beyond these qualities Guderian had creative imagination—the basic characteristic of genius, in the military sphere as well as in others. Most of the recognised masters of the art of war have been content to use the familiar tools and technique of their time. Only a few set out to provide themselves with new means and methods. Developments in weapons have usually been due to some ‘outside’ inventor, often a civilian. Developments in tactics have usually been due to some original military thinker and his gradually spreading influence on progressive-minded officers of the rising generation. Innovators have rarely had the chance to put into practice themselves the theories they have expounded. Guderian, however, was able to gain that opportunity. And as he coupled creative imagination with dynamic energy he was able to exploit the opportunity—with revolutionary results.
I first saw the light of day at Kulm on the Vistula, one Sunday morning, the 17th of June, 1888. My father, Friedrich Guderian, was at that time Senior Lieutenant in the 2nd Pomeranian Jaeger Battalion: he had been born on the 3rd of August, 1858, at Gross-Klonia in the district of Tuchel. My mother, née Clara Kirchhoff, was born on the 26th of February, 1865, at Niemczyk in the district of Kulm. Both my grandfathers were landed gentry and, for so far back as I can trace my family, all my ancestors were either landowners or lawyers in the Warthegau or in East or West Prussia. My father was the only regular army officer to whom I was at all closely related.
On the 2nd of October, 1890, my brother Fritz was born.
In 1891 my father’s military duties took him to Colmar, in Alsace, and from the age of six, until his transfer to Saint-Avold in Lorraine in 1900, I attended school there. Saint-Avold, however, is too small to boast a high school of its own, so my parents had to send us away to boarding school. My father’s limited means, and the expressed wishes of both his sons to become officers, made him choose a cadet school for our further education. So my brother and I were sent to the Karlsruhe cadet school in Baden, on April 1st, 1901, where 1 remained until the 1st of April, 1903, on which date I was transferred to the chief cadet school at Gross-Lichterfelde, near Berlin, my brother following me thither two years later. In February of 1907 I took my final examinations, the Reifeprüfung. When I remember my instructors and teachers from these formative years it is with emotions of deep gratitude and respect. Our education in the cadet corps was of course one of military austerity and simplicity. But it was founded on kindness and justice. Our course of studies was based on that of the up-to-date civilian schools, the Realgymnasium, the main emphasis being on modern languages, mathematics and history. This provided a good preparation for life, and the standards reached by the cadets were in no way inferior to those of similar civilian institutions.
In February 1907 I was sent, as ensign-cadet, Fähnrich, to the 10th Hanoverian Jaeger Battalion at Bitche in Lorraine, which my father commanded until December 1908. This was a stroke of good fortune, since I could now once again enjoy the pleasures of living in my parents’ home after my six years’ absence at the cadet schools. After attending the War School at Metz from April to December 1907 I was commissioned Second Lieutenant on the 27th of January, 1908, with seniority as of the 22nd of June, 1906. From then, until the beginning of the First World War, I lived the happy life of a junior officer. On October 1st, 1909, our Jaeger Battalion was sent to its home district, the province of Hanover, and was employed on garrison duty at Goslar in the Harz mountains. It was there that I became engaged to Margarete Goerne, my dear wife. We were married on October 1st, 1913, and she has been a true helpmate to me ever since, sharing with me all the pleasures and the pains of a long, eventful, and by no means always easy military career.
Our newly found happiness was rudely interrupted by the outbreak of war on August the 2nd, 1914, and during the next four years it was only very occasionally that I managed to spend a short leave with my wife and our little family. On August 23rd, 1914, God gave us a son, Heinz Günter, and on the 17th of September, 1918, a second son, Kurt.
My dear father died at the beginning of the war as the result of a serious operation that he had had to undergo the previous May and that had necessitated his leaving the service as physically unfit. With his death I lost a man whom I regarded as a model of soldierly and human virtue. My mother survived him for over sixteen years. She departed this life in March of 1931 after a life filled with kindness and love.
When the armistice of 1918 was signed I participated in frontier defence in the East, first in Silesia and later in the Baltic States. At the end of this book will be found a detailed list of my various military appointments together with relevant facts concerning my personal life. From this it can be seen that my career up to 1922 alternated between regimental and staff duties, that I was by training an infantry man, but that an attachment to the 3rd Telegraph Battalion at Koblenz and an assignment involving work with radio during the early months of the First World War enabled me to acquire a certain knowledge of signal matters which was to stand me in good stead in the years to come when I was to be engaged in building up a new arm of the service.