Guderian

Graehame

Banned
It is disturbing to see that contributors to this site predominantly consider to be orthodox the views (1) that Guderian was not primarily responsible for the creation of the German armoured force in WW2, & (2) that Guderian was a liar who fabricated many of his recollections of the war.
When I google the name "Guderian", leaving out sites that don't address the issues or simply duplicate one another's information, the top 5 sites that I get are en.wikipedia.org, historylearningsite.co.uk, euronet.nl, carpenoctem.tv, & au.af.mil (an official site of the US Air Force).
wikipedia says of Guderian : "Fluent in both English and French, he gathered ideas by the British maneuver warfare theorists JFC Fuller &, debatably, BH Liddell Hart, as well as the writings...of the then-unknown Charles de Gaulle. Their works were translated into German by Guderian. ...he had written many papers on motorised warfare which were seen as authoritative... The panzer force he created would become the core of the German Army's power. To this day, his contributions...are studied throughout military schools... Guderian was the first who fully developed & advocated the strategy of blitzkrieg & put it into its final shape."
historylearningsite says : "...Guderian is considered to be the father of Blitzkrieg... Guderian’s mode of fighting had a devastating impact on Poland & in the west of Europe leading up to the Allies withdrawal... From July 1934, Guderian was given the task by Hitler of perfecting the fighting techniques of the Panzers..."
euronet says : "...Guderian was the leading theorist of armored warfare in Germany... The tank could not simply overrun all opponents...nor should it be just a tool to help the infantry. Instead, it should operate as part of a 'combined arms team' supported by large numbers of motorized infantry, artillery, & engineers. This middle position was...upsetting... If either of the extreme views was correct, all the Army had to do...was train a few isolated tank units; when war came, these would simply be told which infantry unit to support, or be turned loose on the helpless enemy... Guderian, however, was calling for large parts of the Army to be reorganized into divisions built around armor, upsetting the routines of a lot of people..."
carpenoctem.tv calls : "...Guderian, the German leader in tank operations & implementer of 'blitzkrieg'-type warfare... not until Hitler...saw an impressive series of small demonstrations of armoured operations did Guderian receive permission in 1934 to form his first tank battalion."
au.af.mil says of him : "...was the mastermind behind the successful blitz operations in Poland, France, & the Soviet Union." (The Air Force site also lists 23 books & professional papers which overwhelmingly endorse Guderian's claims to have been primarily responsible for the creation of the German armoured force in WW2.)
One site whose absence particularly struck me was that of the US Army's Command & General Staff School at Ft. Leavenworth.
cgsc.edu calls Guderian "The creator of the blitzkrieg", & says of him : "At the end of the first World War two German generals, Eimannsberger & Guderian, devoted themselves to developing the theory of the tank."
In short, the fact that Guderian was one of those who were primarily responsible for the creation of the German armoured force, as well as the presumption that his recollections are for the most part authoritative, are well-established, & are taught as such in military academies & college-level military science courses across the world. Opinions to the contrary represent a definite minority view.
 
Guderian was one only one of several men who developed theories of tank warfare in Germany, he just gets more credit because the others names arnt as well known, due the general public being historicly ignorant.

His post-war lying in his memoirs etc is well established but that a common trait of post-war German generals trying to whitewash their own record. Blaming Hitler and their peers for their own failures and saying the Red Army only won due to mook swarm tactics
 
Guderian was one only one of several men who developed theories of tank warfare in Germany, he just gets more credit because the others names arnt as well known, due the general public being historicly ignorant.

His post-war lying in his memoirs etc is well established but that a common trait of post-war German generals trying to whitewash their own record. Blaming Hitler and their peers for their own failures and saying the Red Army only won due to mook swarm tactics

I's say that a good share of his credit is due by the fact he was very good at it.
Ask the french for details.

Also, read his pre-war treaty (written in 1936-1937) analyzing the use of tanks in the Great war and laying the lines of mechanized warfare which actually were used in WW2
 
While there were several advocates for blitzkrieg-like tank warfare both within Germany and in other countries (Patton or de Gaulle for example), iirc Guderian was the only one who had the idea to equip each individual tank with a radio, rather than each tank unit (platoon, I think), thus giving the Wehrmacht's armored forces much greater flexibility and reaction speed.

- Kelenas
 
I think its pretty much established fact that Guderian was indeed one of a group of far sighted officers in the Reichswehr/Wehrmacht. In many ways, Von Seeckt or even Lutz can be considered the father of the Panzer for allowing it to be developed. Who exactly championed integrated mechanized units in which tanks were part of combined warfare is difficult to determine after the fact. Especially with self-serving memoirs and whatnot and some generals better at self promotion than others.

What makes Guderian stand out is probably his sheer doggedness in singing Panzers' praises. Until mid 1935, integrated mechanized forces were not poplular, even in the relatively forward looking German army. Most of the panzer pioneers were quietly working towards gaining acceptance of their ideas whereas Guderian was loudly proclaiming it, without regard to his career.
 
His post-war lying in his memoirs etc is well established but that a common trait of post-war German generals trying to whitewash their own record. Blaming Hitler and their peers for their own failures and saying the Red Army only won due to mook swarm tactics

That's one of the most annoying myths of the war (outside people not knowing there was an eastern front) it also bugs me how they justify it by counting Soviet civillian casualties as military casualties making it seem like there was a more than 5 to 1 casualty rate.
 
There is an excellent book that just came out by Dennis Showalter; Hitler's Panzer's... he is a very distinguished professor of military history at the university of colorado... I highly recommend it and his previous book Patton and Rommel

Showalter, makes the arguement that German armored development owes much more to natural progression, and numurious wise guiding hands (including Guderian, but Showalter correctly points out that he was just one of a number of similar liked men, and shows the points where Guderian greatly overinflated his own value to the creation of the armored forces)... he makes extensive use of Hans Von Seckts paper's which are very telling on the subject, along with the OKH diary entries of Beck and Fritsch which are very interesting

Not to say Guderian wasn't a very talented field commander, and a technocrat of good skill, but his memoirs where entirely in a vaccume and shouldn't be taken at face value... the guy rivaled Patton and Hitler for vanity and use of the first person

@red.... the only battles I have heard of where civilian deaths/mass arrests are even considered to have seriously skewed hauls was at Kiev (I have heard challanges of as much as 200k not being in the army) and Bryansk (same deal)... the overall Soviet body count at Stalingrad may also be swayed but even Anthony Beever doesn't venture a guess as to what Soviet losses in that battle actually where and Krushchev was way too jaded to be taken seriously on the matter

Serious blood baths like 2nd Ladoga, Mars and 3rd Kharkov did see the Germans inflict dispraportionatly high casualites exceeding 5 to 1 and in the case of mars, hitting 9 to 1... which was verified by Glantz through tremendous research.... he had model and kluge's war diaries, plus he was given extensive access to the Moscow war archives, and Zhukov's notes, and the Soviet medical returns (which where highly suppressed by the NKVD/KGB for years)....given how draconian soviet conscription was... especially in desperate situations (you could see boys as young as 13 called up easily)... it is only partially fair to blame the germans for having inflated body counts when the soviets themselves actually considered a lot of questionable people to be "in uniform"
 
Serious blood baths like 2nd Ladoga, Mars and 3rd Kharkov did see the Germans inflict dispraportionatly high casualites exceeding 5 to 1 and in the case of mars, hitting 9 to 1... which was verified by Glantz through tremendous research.... he had model and kluge's war diaries, plus he was given extensive access to the Moscow war archives, and Zhukov's notes, and the Soviet medical returns (which where highly suppressed by the NKVD/KGB for years)....given how draconian soviet conscription was... especially in desperate situations (you could see boys as young as 13 called up easily)... it is only partially fair to blame the germans for having inflated body counts when the soviets themselves actually considered a lot of questionable people to be "in uniform"

I agree that there were battles were the Soviet body count was catastrophically high, but those were catastrophes in the eyes of Soviet High Command not an acceptable loss as many in the general public claim. In the case of Mars it was only Stalin's love of Zhukov that kept the Marshal away from an all expenses paid trip to Siberia. Such casualties were never the norm as you'll agree despite many in the general public and some German generals claiming otherwise. If this was the case then the war would have been over by 1943 after a Soviet collapse.
 
I agree that there were battles were the Soviet body count was catastrophically high, but those were catastrophes in the eyes of Soviet High Command not an acceptable loss as many in the general public claim. In the case of Mars it was only Stalin's love of Zhukov that kept the Marshal away from an all expenses paid trip to Siberia. Such casualties were never the norm as you'll agree despite many in the general public and some German generals claiming otherwise. If this was the case then the war would have been over by 1943 after a Soviet collapse.

I agree... disasters such as mars where tough lessons learned on the Russians... and following that and kharkov (which where within a few months of each other) the Russians where rarely that careless and reckless with their troops... there where still times after where the Germans punched them in the mouth (notably Hossbach/Model's East Prussian counter attack in 1944) but it was typically only on a local level (Hossbach shredded one Soviet Army)... Kaments for as big a victory as it was only cost the Russians 5 crushed divisions which was a drop in the bucket, and burned up all the panzer reserves

One could make the arguement that after Kharkov, the Soviets didn't have a battle where they didn't suffer unacceptable losses till Berlin... and given the strategic and propaganda value of capturing Berlin, it can also be argued that their body count in Berlin was "worth the objective"

I agree... if Mars or Kiev had been any more than a 2 or 3 time experience, the Russians couldn't have survived it... you can't have theater level total drubbings on a regular basis and continue to fight
 
Having read Guderian's book Panzer Commander I would suggest that he is pretty darn good at whitewashing some of the more sordid aspects of what the Wehrmacht did, especially in Russia.

Guderian did not invent tank warfare or the blitzkrieg. What he did was take the ideas that had already emerged during the 1920s from people like B. Liddell-Hart and adapt them to the specific needs of the German military.

It's also forgotten that, unlike the French and British armies, the majority of officers in the German army were relatively young, had first hand experience in the trench warfare of the First World War and were more innovative. The ban on the Germans having tanks and other heavy weapons meant that when Germany began to rearm they were able to start from scratch and that meant they could build the weapons they needed to suit the tactics rather than the other way around like the French and the Russians did.
 

Graehame

Banned
Self-promotion & lying, in my mind, are 2 separate things. The former involves emphasizing the positive aspects of whatever point you're trying to make & de-emphasizing anything to the contrary. The latter involves outright fabrication. Granted that Guderian was a skilled self-promoter, I'd need examples to conclude that he was an habitual liar.
The fact that Guderian was assigned to command 1 of the first 3 panzerdivisions, the largest panzerkorps in both the Polish & French campaigns, & 1 of the 2 largest panzergruppes in the Russian campaign argues strongly that his contemporaries regarded him as possessing some unique insight into the capabilities & utilization of panzers. Certainly his performance in all 3 campaigns reinforces this impression, especially in France, where he was primarily responsible for breaking the back of the Allied defense.
 
Lets not use the word lying... lets say putting things in his books that don't make sense and not really retrospective

His actions at Dunkirk (spreading out his corps to attack calais and boulonge) inspite of having total air superiority to know where all the allied strength was where critical to the overall German choice not to assault the bridgehead and try to capture the BEF... based on his deployments only 10th panzer was in a position to assault the city, and they where the weakest of his formations... yet somehow he "favored" a full blooded assault on the BEF and French first army with this 1 formation... Rundstead was just too much of a gentlemen to committ to paper exactly what a blowhard he was in this situation. Guderian had been slapped on the wrist just days before for disobeying orders (a trend for him)... if he actually believed in assaulting dunkirk he would have done one of the following two things (based on his command history and personality)

1. Not spread out his corps so he could actually assault Dunkirk with the sum of his strength

OR

2. If he was unhappy that 10th panzer couldn't assault Dunkirk, threatened his resignation... he had no problem doing so several times in the preceding days and throughout his career

And I have explained to you previously that his "desire" to assault Moscow was just utter nonsense, backed by 10 years of distance, with the love of the British military press and the deaths of anyone who would say what a pile of crap he was spewing

Hitler also put Paulus in charge of 22 divisions even though he had no command experience AND named Himmler a field marshal... Guderian was a political favorite (not that he was undeserving) and it cannot be stated enough that his memoirs completely ignored his own being a Hitler buttboy, and that politics played a HUGE role in his selection for assignments
 
I agree... disasters such as mars where tough lessons learned on the Russians... and following that and kharkov (which where within a few months of each other) the Russians where rarely that careless and reckless with their troops... there where still times after where the Germans punched them in the mouth (notably Hossbach/Model's East Prussian counter attack in 1944) but it was typically only on a local level (Hossbach shredded one Soviet Army)... Kaments for as big a victory as it was only cost the Russians 5 crushed divisions which was a drop in the bucket, and burned up all the panzer reserves

An excellent example of a modern phyrric victory.

One could make the arguement that after Kharkov, the Soviets didn't have a battle where they didn't suffer unacceptable losses till Berlin... and given the strategic and propaganda value of capturing Berlin, it can also be argued that their body count in Berlin was "worth the objective"

The battle of the Seelow heights was a disaster but I guess you could count that as part of the Battle of Berlin.

I agree... if Mars or Kiev had been any more than a 2 or 3 time experience, the Russians couldn't have survived it... you can't have theater level total drubbings on a regular basis and continue to fight

Precisely, outside cartoons anyway.
 

Graehame

Banned
BLAIRWITCH
"His actions at Dunkirk (spreading out his corps to attack calais and boulonge)...were critical to the overall German choice not to assault the bridgehead..."
The halt-order was received on 24 May. On 20 May PzK 19 was authorized to advance on Amiens, 100 mi S of Dunkirk, from the E. The korps was deployed with PzDiv 2 advancing on the R along the axis Albert-Abbeville, PzDiv 1 advancing vs Amiens, & PzDiv 10 protecting the L flank along the line Peronne-Corbie, on the opposite side of the korps from Dunkirk. On 21 May, following the conquest of Abbeville & Amiens, no orders were received & no one knew in what direction the advance would proceed, so the day was wasted. Late in the day orders were received to advance vs 'the Channel ports' (Boulougne, Calais, & Dunkirk), but PzDiv 10 was also withdrawn at that time into PzGp reserve, so was not available for this purpose. In view of his orders to secure 'the Channel ports', Guderian therefore ordered PzDiv 2 to advance along the coast to Boulougne, & PzDiv 1 w/IR GD to advance along the axis Samer-Desvres-Calais. This was eminently reasonable since he was attacking from the S, & Boulougne & Calais both lay closer to him than Dunkirk did. The advance began early on 22 May, PzDiv 1 encountered heavy resistance vic Samer-Desvres, & late in the day PzDiv 10-- now far to the rear-- was returned to PzK 19's control. The battles that PzDiv 1 had been engaged in outside Calais by now being over, Guderian therefore made the eminently reasonable decision to replace PzDiv 1 with PzDiv 10, & to send PzDiv 1 on ahead to Dunkirk. On 23 May PzDiv 2 was engaged in heavy fighting at Boulougne, which was secured by the following day; PzDiv 1 fought its way thru enemy resistance to secure bridgeheads across the Aa Canal on the 24th; & PzDiv 10 arrived outside Calais. Then the halt-order brought everything to a stop.
Given that Guderian's orders were to secure 'the Channel ports' (Boulougne, Calais, & Dunkirk), I'm unclear what choice you think he had other than to spread out his korps, or why in the world he should have bypassed Boulougne & Calais to mass his korps vs Dunkirk. To do that would have been truly insane.
"...based on his deployments only 10th panzer was in a position to assault the city..."
As can be seen above, PzDiv 1-- not PzDiv 10-- was in a position to immediately assault Dunkirk. However IR GD was already there, & with the end of fighting for Boulougne on the 24th PzDiv 2 could have been in position within a day, as well as the 29th InfDiv (motor). If Calais could have been besieged by supporting infantry then PzDiv 10 could have been made available as well. Probably more than enough force to deal with a demoralized & all but defeated enemy.
"...and they were the weakest of his formations..."
Assuming you mean PzDiv 10, that div had Pz Rgts 7 & 8, Rifle Rgts 69 & 86, & Artil Rgt 90. Assuming you mean PzDiv 1, that div had Pz Rgts 1 & 2, Rifle Rgts 1 & 113, & Artil Rgt 73-- a virtually identical OB. Comparing these to PzDiv 2, we find that PzDiv 2 also had 2 panzer rgts, 2 rifle rgts, & an artillery rgt. Based on this I'm not sure which could be considered the weakest.
"...yet somehow he 'favored' a full blooded assault on the BEF and French first army with this 1 formation..."
As we've seen, it wasn't just 1 division. It was the bulk of & potentially the entire PzK 19.
"Rundstead was just too much of a gentlemen to committ to paper exactly what a blowhard he was..."
Your wild assumptions about what von Rundstedt might have said had he not been such a gentleman do little credit to your theories.
"...if he actually believed in assaulting dunkirk he would have done one of the following two things (based on his command history and personality) 1. Not spread out his corps so he could actually assault Dunkirk with the sum of his strength."
Given that Guderian had a history of disobeying orders that he disagreed with, there's no evidence that he either disagreed with his order to secure the Channel ports, or thought that it was beyond the strength of the forces available to him. Also, as seen above, he potentially did have the sum of his strength with which to assault Dunkirk. And I repeat, given that he was attacking from the S it was necessary for him to reduce Boulougne & Calais before attacking Dunkirk.
"I have explained to you previously that his 'desire' to assault Moscow was just utter nonsense..."
...and my detailed appreciation of that campaign shows just what I think of that conclusion.
"Hitler also put Paulus in charge of 22 divisions even though he had no command experience..."
An idiotic decision that has nothing to do with what we're talking about.
"AND named Himmler a field marshal..."
...another one.
 

Cook

Banned
and it cannot be stated enough that his memoirs completely ignored his own being a Hitler buttboy, and that politics played a HUGE role in his selection for assignments

Well there’s a shock; someone downplaying their closeness to Hitler!
It’s a shame because "I was Hitler’s Buttboy" would have looked great on the dust cover of his autobiography.
 
Well there’s a shock; someone downplaying their closeness to Hitler!
It’s a shame because "I was Hitler’s Buttboy" would have looked great on the dust cover of his autobiography.

At least the title would have been honest

or alternatively

How to command a field army and be chief of staff whilst having the attitude of a scorned 12 year old girl/nazi
 
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